Adverse Affection
by GoldenBlade416
Summary: CHAPTER 12 UP. Beast Boy and Raven have an accidentally romantic moment. Afterwards, they begin to ponder and question the way they feel about each other. Meanwhile, someone is planning a new wave of crime in the city. [Beast Boy x Raven]
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

**Author's Note**: Ok, so, this is my first fanfic. Woooo! Anyway, just a few things I want to say beforehand. I guess you can flame me if you want...however, there's a 99 chance that I won't take you seriously. If you want to express and opinion about the story, do it in a dignified manner. And while we're on the subject of reviewing, I greatly appreciate any and all reviews (except flames). They help motivate me, so if you want me to update sooner, just submit a review.

Anyway, now on to the story.

* * *

Adverse Affection

Chapter 1

"I am kickin' your green butt, and you know it!" Cyborg shouted enthusiastically as his car pulled even further ahead Beast Boy's in their latest video game, _Max TurboDrive 4_.

"That's what you think! I've still got my secret weapon," Beast Boy responded deviously. The two continued to stare at the TV screen, madly pressing buttons on the game controllers.

A few moments later, Robin and Starfire entered the room discussing something about the phrase 'killing two birds with one stone' and how nobody is actually throwing rocks at birds when they say this. Upon seeing Cyborg and Beast Boy duking it out on the game station, they joined them on the couch to cheer them on.

"Go friend Cyborg! Go friend Beast Boy! Perform the 'kicking of the butt!'" Starfire shouted ecstatically.

"Hey guys, I play the winner, okay?" added Robin.

"Which is so gonna be me," Beast Boy interjected, leaning closer to the screen. Cyborg, however, did not respond to the changeling's boasting.

"Look BB, there's no way _you_ are gonna beat _me_. As far ahead as I am now, you couldn't even pass me if—you passed me!"

"Ha! Told ya I would Cy!"

"You…I…but…how?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Beast Boy taunted. Cyborg slouched over angrily and attempted to salvage what he could of his dignity.

Shortly after this little skirmish, the doors to the living room wooshed open again, this time making way for Raven. She was, as usual garbed in her blue cloak with her face buried in another book.

Just like always, Beast Boy was the first to notice her presence and greet her.

"Hey Rae! What's up?" he asked cheerily as he turned his head away from the video game to talk to her. Raven stopped walking and scowled behind the pages of her book. Slowly she lowered the book to reveal her slightly angry face.

"Don't call me that," she spoke calmly, then continued reading and walked into the kitchen.

Of all the things Raven didn't like, it was that stupid pet name that the team had given her. No, that wasn't true. She didn't dislike it; she detested it. And somehow, hearing it from Beast Boy, the one person in the household that annoyed her the most, just made her hate it all the more.

Not deeming the issue important enough for further thought, Raven began to prepare herself some herbal tea. As she waited, she turned her gaze to her teammates surrounding the TV. Starfire was moving around effervescently while cheering her friends on. Robin was, of course, watching Starfire's every movement. Cyborg was staring intently at the game in front of him. Beast Boy too was concentrating on the game, apparently not fazed by Raven's previous remark.

When Beast Boy had turned around to talk to Raven, Cyborg had taken advantage of his momentary lack of concentration and once again pulled ahead in the game. Beast Boy was doing his best to catch up and pass Cyborg, but it didn't seem to be working.

"Oh, I've got ya now, BB," Cyborg taunted.

Beast Boy merely contorted his face in concentration. However, it was useless. In a minute, Cyborg had once again gotten far ahead and crossed the finish line.

"Alright Beast Boy, hand it over," Robin said. Beast Boy grudgingly handed over the controller as he grumbled under his breath. His face showed great annoyance at having lost to Cyborg _again_.

Cyborg and Robin began a new game and Starfire began her new round of cheering loudly. Beast Boy, not being the sit-back-and-watch kind of guy, quickly grew bored just watching the others play. He glanced around the room looking for something to do. His previous look of annoyance melted away when his eyes passed over Raven. He decided to go and strike up a conversation with her.

"Hey! Watcha' up to Rae?" he asked. Raven gave him one of her trademark death glares. "-ven," he added, finishing her name. Raven sighed, figuring she wouldn't be able to get rid of him.

"What does it look like I'm doing? Making tea," she responded.

"Well duh. I meant besides that. Like what's goin' on in your life?" he said, sitting down in a chair across the counter.

"I should be asking you that," she retorted.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've been mysteriously leaving, going god knows where, for hours at a time, then just coming back like it's nothing," she said. This was true. For the past few months, Beast Boy had been randomly getting up and leaving. He would stay out, usually for around two hours, then just show up back at the tower again. He had thought nobody knew about his little excursions, but Raven, being an empath, sensed his presence come and go whenever he left. Luckily, he didn't disappear when any crimes were being committed, but it was still puzzling.

To be honest, Raven was a little bit curious about where he went and what he did for all that time. A _very_ little bit curious. She had never really cared enough to ask, but now seemed as good a time as any.

"I…well…I've just been going…places," Beast Boy stammered.

"Where?" she questioned.

"Wherever I feel like, I guess."

"Why?"

"Dude, what's with all these questions? It's a free country! I can go somewhere if I want." Beast Boy responded, turning his face away from her.

"Whatever," Raven said stoically as she turned around to tend to her now boiling tea.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Beast Boy asked irritably, turning around again.

"Nothing. It _is_ a free country. You _can_ do what you want." Beast Boy stared at her, dumbfounded.

"That's it? You're just gonna drop it? Without arguing or calling me dumb or _anything_?"he asked incredulously.

"Looks like it," Raven said indifferently before she took a sip of tea.

"Well…okay." Beast Boy paused. "So..." he muttered unexcitedly.

"So…" she retorted, clearly not interested in further enhancing the conversation, or lack thereof.

There was another pause.

"Wanna hear a joke?" Beast Boy asked, his face brightening up. Raven merely stared at him, trying to figure out if he seriously thought she might say "yes".

"If I say no, which we both know I will, you're going to tell me anyway, aren't you?"

"Of course!" he responded, grinning. She sighed.

"Well, I figure I'll at least live for another forty years. Completely wasting a few minutes of my life won't kill me…I hope," she said, dreading what was to come.

"Great!" Beast Boy leaned in a bit. "Now. What do Alexander the Great and Kermit the Frog have in common?"

Raven continued her blank stare, still plainly wishing she were anywhere else at the moment.

"Their middle names!" Beast Boy exclaimed as he burst out laughing. Raven, however, was (as expected) unimpressed. Once Beast Boy noticed this, his laughing slowly stopped.

"Dude, don't even tell me you didn't think that was a _little_ bit funny!"

"Okay, I won't tell you," she retorted coolly.

"Dang! I _knew_ the other one was better. Here, listen. This guy walks into a bar--"

"No, that's okay," she cut him off. "_Please_ don't go out of your way." It was extremely evident that Raven was _not _interested in hearing his second attempt at a joke.

"Besides, I think you have laughed enough for both of us today," she spoke in her typical manner. Beast Boy sighed and settled back down into his chair. He glanced across the counter at Raven, who now had her eyes glued into the book she had been reading when she walked in. He stared into her eyes and tried to find something, _anything_ in them that would give him a hint. Some kind of clue as to what made her tick, what made her smile. He continued this search for a minute, but to no avail.

"You know," he began. "I'll do it someday, Raven." She looked up.

"Do what?" she questioned.

"Make you smile, or laugh, or something." He put on a mischievous grin. "You know it'll happen _someday_."

"Why do you even bother?" she asked, glancing down at her book again. "Why do you always try to make me smile, even though we both know you can't?"

"Hmm…" Beast Boy muttered as he began to think. Why _did_ he try so hard? Why _did_ he spend so much time and energy trying to make her smile? Why was he so concerned with making her happy for once? These questions raced through his mind, and Beast Boy realized, even _he_ didn't remember why he had started with this seemingly fruitless mission.

"I don't know…I guess…someone has too," he replied softly. By now though, Raven had become absorbed in her book again and wasn't even paying enough attention to recognize what he said.

"Huh?" she questioned, breaking her eyes away from the pages momentarily.

"Ah, nothing," he shrugged it off. He wasn't in a thinking mood. "Forget about it."

"Whatever…" she spoke, shaking her head at Beast Boy's low attention span as she began reading again.

There was another monotonous period of awkward silence. It was beginning to be too much for Beast Boy. He sighed again. After thinking about absolutely nothing for a moment, he turned his head to see his three other friends sitting on the couch, now watching a movie. Cyborg was sitting on the far left. Robin was next to him, with Starfire sitting at his side, as usual. He glanced back at Raven. She was still silently reading her book. The dreary, calm, dullness of the situation was overpowering. Beast Boy decided that he'd had enough. He scooted out of his chair and got up.

"Well, I'm goin' out," he said. This perked Raven's interest a bit.

"Where to?" she asked, trying not to sound as curious as she really was. It wasn't that she was overly interested in Beast Boy's life or anything; she just hated being in the dark about things. Not knowing something just bothered her. It bothered her even more than Beast Boy's interminable bantering. At least he could be nice to have around occasionally. _Very_ occasionally.

Beast Boy thought for a moment. He had indeed been intending to go to his secret "spot" that he ventured to every so often. It had been quite a long time since he'd been there, so he needed to go soon. However, he couldn't tell this to Raven. Instead, he took a few steps toward the living room where Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire were.

"Hey guys! I'm goin' out for a while. You want anything?"

"Uhh…how 'bout some ice cream?" Cyborg asked.

"The frozen cream of many flavors? That sounds most enjoyable!"

"What flavors?" Beast Boy questioned.

"Cookie dough," Cyborg said, turning back around to face the TV.

"Chocolate," Robin added, doing the same.

"Mustard," Starfire chimed. Everyone stared at her with looks of confusion and slight disgust at the thought of what mustard-flavored ice cream might taste like.

Beast Boy regained his composure and spoke, "Right! So, one cookie dough, one chocolate, and one sherbert."

Upon hearing this, Starfire spoke up. "But I said—,"

"Trust me Star," Robin stopped her, "you'll like sherbert better." She conceded and they both resumed watching the movie.

Meanwhile, Beast Boy stepped back into the kitchen and walked up to Raven.

"Well Rae, to answer your question, it looks like I'm going to the ice cream parlor," he said to. "You want any?"

"_Don't_ call me that. And just get some mint chocolate chip," she spoke quietly.

"Mint chocolate chip? Why do you want that stuff? It's gross!" Beast boy questioned incredulously. Raven scowled.

"It isn't any of your business why I do or don't like something!" she said angrily.

"Dude, sorry! I'll get the mint chocolate chip," Beast Boy said, throwing his hands up in defense. "Sheesh!"

Beast Boy walked out the door without another word.

'_Finally_' she thought, sipping her tea. It wasn't really that she minded Beast Boy asking her why she liked that flavor of ice cream; she had just wanted him to leave already.

She didn't necessarily want him to leave because he was bugging her (though he was), but because she intended to follow him. Raven knew that he'd _said_ he was going to get ice cream, but she knew better than that. Beast Boy never just asked if anyone wanted him to go get something for them; he was too lazy. He must have had some other location to attend, or he wouldn't have decided to leave in the first place. Raven decided that this would be the last time Beast Boy went off, leaving her to wonder where he went.

As the movie continued to play, neither Cyborg, Robin, nor Starfire noticed Raven rise from her seat and quietly slip out the door.

* * *

Raven pulled out her communicator to check if she was still headed in the same direction as Beast Boy. She had been using the tracking network in their communicators to find out exactly where he was headed. Apparently Beast Boy had forgotten about this handy feature, among other things. 

Raven continued following his signal, staying a safe distance behind so as not to reveal herself. For some reason unknown to her, Beast Boy had chosen to walk to wherever he was going. This meant that if Raven wanted to remain undetected to him, she would have to stay on the ground and walk also.

So far, she had passed the video store, bank, grocery store, pharmacy, and many other various shops. Eventually, she came upon the ice cream parlor. She smiled inwardly, now that she knew Beast Boy was indeed going somewhere else that he hadn't bothered to tell anyone about.

This newfound pleasure disappeared quickly though, as she continued walking…and walking…and walking. She checked her communicator again to be sure she was still on Beast Boy's trail. As far as she could tell, she was still headed in his direction. However, this part of town didn't seem like a place she would associate Beast boy with. It was basically the outskirts of the city, the slums, the poor and desolate place in between the bustling civilization of the city, and the vast emptiness beyond it. It was dirty, dark, and full of miserable, shady people. Not exactly the kind of place that would have suited Beast Boy.

Despite this paradox, Beast Boy continued walking, and Raven continued following. By now, they were all the way to the edge of the city. Because there were no more people or buildings around, she was forced to stay far away from Beast Boy to avoid being seen.

Raven looked around at the not-so-pleasant scenery. Sand covered the ground as far as the eye could see. The entire landscape was empty, save for a few dry shrubs here and there. Again, this struck her as a place that one would _not_ typically find Beast Boy in. She continued in the direction of his signal though, hoping the computer wasn't misinterpreting the signal or otherwise malfunctioning.

Raven began to have a strange feeling. She couldn't shake the sensation that she had been here before. The place just looked so familiar. It held some predominant place in her mind, but never quite jarred a specific memory.

She continued to dig through her memories while following the direction of Beast Boy's signal. Eventually, she saw something off in the distance. Upon coming closer to it, she saw that it was a cave.

Suddenly, Raven knew exactly where she was. That hidden memory that had previously remained buried came forth like a bat out of the cave that stood before her. She remembered exactly what this place was, and exactly why Beast Boy had come here.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Ok, just saying again, don't flame, it won't get you anywhere. Reviews are appreciated. 

Oh, and bonus points to whoever can guess where the big "secret place". I guess I'll give honorable mention to the first reviewer to guess it correctly. However, don't just guess the place without also putting in a review.

Til' next time. GoldenBlade416


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them. I also do not own the movie_ Blade: Trinity_, which briefly appears in this chapter. Actually, if you see anything at all in this chapter that doesn't belong to me, then I don't own it.

**Author's Note**: Okay, a few things to talk about before you read.

First off, reviews. Wow! I honestly didn't expect so many reviews in such a short time. You guys rock! Each and every one of you! Don't ever think that your reviews for me go unnoticed. I read _every _one.

Second, I promised to give honorable mention to the first reviewer to correctly guess where BB's big secret place was. That reviewer was...drumroll...

Divine-Red-Crayon! Congratulations! Your prize: getting your name put here! lol

Next, I noticed that in many of the reviews, you guys noted how well I kept everybody in character. Well, I'll have to warn you then, that kind of gets thrown out of the window in this chapter at times. Raven becomes very comforting, and Beast Boy becomes very depressed. HOWEVER, don't worry. This is only temporary. Raven will be back to her stoic self in no time, and Beast Boy will be laughing away and playing video games before you know it. So, with that said, here's chapter 2.

* * *

Chapter 2

Slowly, Raven stepped into the dark cave before her. The cave where months, maybe years ago, six Titans had entered, but only five left. As she walked, she glanced around at the surrounding walls of the cavern that also served as a tomb. _Terra's_ tomb.

Raven knew that she shouldn't be doing this. She knew that should have left Beast Boy to his own agenda and respected his privacy. After all, she herself had erupted at her teammates countless times for attempting to invade her own. However, something made her press onward to find him.

Raven was looking for him, she deduced, out of concern. Yes, concern. Despite the way she often treated Beast Boy, he was still her friend (most of the time) and he still held a place in her heart (not always a good place, but _some_ place nonetheless). Besides, she too had had a taste of the heartbreak that he was undoubtedly experiencing right now.

Raven vividly recalled the "Malchior-incident", as it had been dubbed. She remembered how he had moved in on a weak moment and said exactly the right things to steal her heart. She remembered the way she fell for him like a ton of bricks and gave him everything he had ever needed to be set free.

She also remembered the events that followed. How Beast Boy had come to comfort her, no doubt because he knew how she felt. How because of his concern, she had actually _hugged_ him. His reaction to it puzzled her though. Beast Boy was typically a flamboyant person with his emotions, unlike her. Granted, her actions were unexpected, but she still thought he would have at least hugged her back. He didn't though. Instead, his normally happy and green face turned to a shocked expression with a red tint as he backed away from her. She had been about to ask him what was wrong, until Cyborg came and began a game of stankball.

Raven realized that, for comforting her when her heart had been broken, she had never really repaid the favor. She had cheered him up a bit after the "beast incident". However, that didn't seem to be nearly as desperate as the emotional heartache of love and betrayal they had both endured. Now, Beast Boy was probably in a great deal of pain. Now, it was her turn to comfort him when _his_ heart was breaking.

Eventually, the light from the entrance of the cave began to get farther and farther away. By now it was just a tiny spec of light off in the distance. For all intensive purposes, it was pitch black. Raven lit up her hand with her powers for light. It wasn't nearly as bright as the light Starfire could produce with her hands, but it served its purpose. Raven then began to ponder how Beast Boy had found his way through the place without any light source. She then realized that he had probably turned into something like a cat, or any other animal that could see in the dark.

As she continued walking, memories of the place came flooding back to Raven. She recalled the final time her and her teammates had fought Terra above ground. As their emotional bonds to her were forgotten, they lost all mercy and began to easily defeat her. Realizing this, Terra ran off to seek help from Slade. Shortly after, Raven, Starfire, Cyborg, and Robin realized that Beast Boy had gone after her. Using their communicators as Raven was now, they followed him all the way to the cavern that lead to Slade's (now empty) lair. Raven recognized the tunnel she was currently traversing. The Titans had immediately run into the cave in search of Beast Boy. The first time Raven and the rest of them came through this passage, they were quickly running and frantically searching for any signs of their comrade.

Now however, Raven was merely walking along the path. With Slade gone (or so they hoped), she doubted Beast Boy was in any mortal danger like last time. However, she was still searching through this long, dark cave for him, concerned that he was alright. It seemed to be a never-ending pattern.

Up ahead, Raven noticed, the passage seemed to get a bit wider. She hoped that this meant she was getting closer to Terra's statue, where Beast Boy should be.

"It's about time," she muttered irritably. Raven was _trying_ to be a good person and tend to Beast Boy, but it was beginning to require too much work. The entire trip from the Tower, to the edge of the city, and through this stupid cave was causing Raven's feet to hurt. She had been walking for at least an hour and a half now, and was also beginning to lose interest in the task. If Beast Boy insisted on being in emotional distress in places that required so much walking, then perhaps he should just learn to deal with it on his own.

The path continued to widen, though. This kept Raven going on, despite her now aching feet. A few minutes later, the path opened up into a large, spacious chamber. Raven praised herself for being able to walk such a long distance. Getting back to business, she used her powers to try and locate Beast Boy. She didn't have to try for long though. Almost immediately, she faintly heard someone's voice off in the distance. She presumed it was him.

Raven couldn't clearly distinguish the voice, or what it was saying. She could nevertheless, recognize the sadness in it. If it weren't for the slightly squeaky, boyish tone to it, she may not have even been able to recognize the voice as Beast Boy's.

As she trudged on, the voice seemed to be getting clearer. Raven hoped that this meant she was moving in the right direction. She still couldn't discern what exactly Beast Boy was saying, but she noticed that as his voice became more lucid with each passing step, it also grew increasingly depressed.

After a few more minutes of walking, Raven could finally understand some of what Beast Boy was saying. However, all that she could really make out were "I", "we", "you", and occasionally, some other words.

Finally, she realized that it sounded as though Beast Boy was straight ahead of her; there were no boulders, rocks, or other obstacles separating them. The distance between the two, she couldn't determine, but she knew that it was a straight, uninterrupted path.

By now, she could clearly tell exactly what was coming out of Beast Boy's mouth. Again, she knew she shouldn't be intruding like this, but something kept her from simply leaving him there to wallow in misery. He began to speak.

"…And then, I told her it was their middle names," Beast Boy spoke softly. He had feigned laughter at the statement, but it was still obvious he had been crying.

"She didn't think it was funny though," he said, sounding suddenly downtrodden. Raven's eyes widened. She knew Beast Boy was upset, but she was a bit surprised that in his current state, he was thinking about her.

"She never thinks I'm funny. The only one that ever thought I was funny was…you," he continued.

"No one else ever laughed at my jokes like you did. You were the only one who made me feel really…special. Like I wasn't just some immature little kid looking for laughs. And now…" his voice cracked, "you're gone." A few more tears leaked out of his eyes and streamed down his miserable face.

"Now you can't laugh when I tell some stupid joke that isn't really funny, or do stuff with me that no one else would do. Now…" he began. "There's no one that understands me." His last words were spoken barely above a whisper because that was all he could manage. Raven however, had heard them perfectly.

Now, Raven often seemed like a very stoic person. After all, she was constantly focusing on restraining her emotions. Nonetheless, even she couldn't help but feel heartbroken at the changeling's words. This was mainly due to the fact that she could actually relate to the way he was feeling. Often times, she too felt that very few people understood her. The rest of the team certainly found her dark and reclusive behavior strange at times. Beast Boy himself had called her creepy on at least one occasion. However, he had comforted her on the matter afterwards. Now it was her turn to do the same.

"Beast Boy, you—," Raven began to speak.

"Who's there?" Beast Boy impetuously cut her off. In what seemed to be a split second, he had switched from sitting on the ground mourning, to standing up in a somewhat defensive position.

"Beast Boy, calm down! It's me, Raven!" she responded.

"Raven! What are you doing? Why are you here?" he asked, the agitation still present in his voice.

"I just wanted to see if you were alright. I followed you—,"

"You followed me? Were you spying on me!" he cut her off again, the anger his voice rising.

"No, I just—,"

"Raven, this is like, really personal!" he shouted, interrupting her for the third time. Raven was at a loss. This wasn't the reaction she had anticipated. Then again, this wasn't really the situation she had expected to be in when she left the tower either.

"Beast Boy, I didn't—,"

"GO AWAY!" he practically screamed at her. His sudden outburst caused her to jump back in surprise. However, she still remained in the chamber, a look of astonishment stuck on her face.

"GO!" he roared.

With that, Raven engulfed herself with her black aura, taking the form of a Raven, and phased out of the cave.

* * *

Back at Titan's Tower, Raven, looking slightly bedraggled, entered through the doorway leading into the living room. Cyborg was still watching TV and had not moved from his spot on the couch. Robin and Starfire had left to do God knows what. 

"Where've you been?" Cyborg questioned casually. Raven however, was not in such a light mood.

"Out," she replied bitterly, sitting down at the counter. She grabbed the book she had set down before leaving and began to read where she had left off.

"Uh…Ok," Cyborg said as he turned back toward the TV.

Shortly after, Robin and Starfire stepped into the room from the hallway.

"Cyborg, have you been sitting there the entire time we were gone?" Robin asked.

"Yep!" Cyborg replied. "What can I say? The Action Movie Marathon was just calling my name."

Robin smacked his forehead and laughed at his friend's laziness.

"Man, where's BB with the ice cream? He's been gone like an hour!" Cyborg asked, assuaging his now rumbling stomach. Raven didn't so much as glance up from her book at the mention of Beast Boy's name.

"I don't know. He is taking kinda long, isn't he?" Robin added, thinking.

"Oh, you do not think our friend is hurt do you?" Starfire asked. Her usually blissful voice was tainted with worry. Just then, the doors "wooshed" open, making way for Beast Boy. He was carrying a cardboard tray with five ice cream cones in it.

"Never fear Star! Beast Boy is back with the goods!" he boasted as he strutted into the kitchen. By his current demeanor, no one would have guessed anything out of the ordinary had happened.

"Yea, well it's about time grass stain. It took ya' long enough," Cyborg said as he grabbed a cone from the tray.

"Well don't look at me," Beast Boy said defensively. "It's summer! Half the city was out buying ice cream at that place!" Cyborg shrugged, accepting his excuse as valid, and went back to the TV. Robin and Starfire retrieved their own cones, then left to attend to something else in the tower. Now, Beast Boy and Raven were alone in the kitchen, though the noise coming from Cyborg and the TV was still present in the background.

Beast Boy took his own share of the ice cream out and gave it a lick. He then glanced over at Raven, who was trying very hard to keep her eyes in the book and avoid his gaze.

After a few seconds, Beast Boy placed his hand on the cardboard tray, which contained only one cone: the one Raven had asked for. He slid it across the counter in her direction.

"Here," was all he said. She looked up from her book and paused shortly.

"Thanks," she said stoically. She took the ice cream and returned her focus to the book. Beast Boy continued to stare at her though. Like just moments before, she kept her eyes on her reading and acted as though he wasn't really there.

This little "game" continued for a few moments, until Cyborg interrupted it.

"Hey BB!" he shouted from the living room, "Wanna face me in some two-player?"

"You know it!" Beast Boy replied as he smiled and ran out of the kitchen, acting as if nothing had happened.

Once he left, Raven sighed and put down her book. She hadn't really been reading it anyway. She had been more concerned with avoiding eye contact with Beast Boy. Now that he was gone, she closed the book and rubbed her head. Then, she began to work on her ice cream while she pondered the strange events that had taken place earlier.

* * *

**_Later that night..._**

It was movie night at Titan's Tower!

Beast Boy sat at the left end of the couch, followed by Cyborg, then Robin and Starfire, who had, of course, sat next to each other. Raven was at the very right end of the couch, trying to stay as far away from Beast Boy as possible to avoid more awkward situations.

Normally, Raven wouldn't have even agreed to watch the movie with the rest of the group. Cyborg however, had convinced her to do it, on one condition: they would _not_ watch any of Beast Boy's stupid, immature slapstick comedies.

The movie they all decided to watch was _Blade: Trinity_, since it was both dark, for Raven, and action-packed for the others.

Raven however, simply couldn't concentrate on the movie, not that she was really trying all that much in the first place. The day's events kept running over and over again in her mind. She would recall what happened, and then very subtly glance over at Beast Boy to see if he too was as distracted by what had happened. He didn't seem to be, but after today's escapade, Raven really didn't have any idea what he could be thinking.

As she pondered this throughout the movie, she eventually came to a conclusion. Not a good one, but a conclusion nonetheless. No matter how much she hated it, she was going to have to apologize to Beast Boy. In Raven's eyes, he was the most idiotic and immature person on the face of the planet, but she _had_ invaded his privacy. Now she had done the one thing to him that she often chastised him for doing to her, and she had to make up for it, like it or not.

* * *

_**Two hours later... **_

The movie had finished…finally. Once Raven had decided she would later apologize to Beast Boy, she had nothing else to concentrate on except the last hour of the movie. Some parts had been mildly interesting, but on a whole, she would have rather been…well just about anywhere else in the city. To add to that, she also was _not_ looking forward to her upcoming talk with Beast Boy. However, she knew it had to be done.

Cyborg stood up, yawning.

"Well y'all, Cyborg's turnin' in for the night. Later," he said. Numerous variation of "good night" sounded from the other four. He then activated the nighttime security systems and headed off to his room.

Next, Robin got up.

"Well, team, I'm with Cy. Each of us needs all the sleep we can get," he said as he began heading toward the door.

In a flash, Starfire was up off the couch and had her arms wrapped around Robin.

"Good night friend! I wish you the pleasant dreams and hope to see you soon in the morning!" Starfire elatedly shouted. Robin's face lit up like a Christmas tree and turned a deeper shade of red than the shirt of his uniform. The two then made their way to the sleeping quarters, leaving Beast Boy and Raven alone for what seemed like the tenth time today.

Beast Boy, who normally would have taken this opportunity to annoy Raven with his incessant bantering and joking, didn't even spare her a single glance. Without a word, he stood up and walked to the kitchen. Raven, knowing what she had to do, slowly rose and followed him.

When she arrived there, Beast Boy was sitting at the counter with a plate of tofu. He was currently preoccupied with cutting it into smaller chunks. Raven took the seat next to him.

"Uhh…hi," she stammered. Normally, she knew exactly how to talk around Beast Boy, but given the current circumstances, she was at a loss.

"Hey," he said in a stoic manner, not unlike the way Raven usually spoke to him. He didn't even look up from what he was doing.

Raven sighed inwardly. It was now or never.

"Look Beast Boy, about today…," she began.

"Forget it Raven," he said, still not looking up.

"I just wanted to—"

"I said drop it!" he spoke with sudden force, slamming his utensils down on the counter with a bang. Raven jumped in surprise at his sudden anger.

A few seconds passed. Beast Boy exhaled the breath he had been holding.

"Sorry Rae," he said softly, finally looking up from what he was doing. He was expecting Raven to get upset at him for calling her by her pet name. Because of the current situation though, she let it slide.

"Look, don't worry about today," he began again. "You just kinda…surprised me. That's all." His voice had completely lost its previous anger, but still sounded somewhat distant.

"Yeah. I'm uh…sorry…about that," she said, stumbling through each word. Being all nice and apologetic was _not_ her forte.

"And, Beast Boy, about what you said…," she started. Beast Boy turned his gaze toward her, confused about what she was referring to.

"You know, about nobody understanding you…," she answered. Once again, Beast Boy found himself averting eye contact. Raven continued anyway.

"If you really feel that way, then you should just talk to us about it," she said, a bit more soothingly than she had intended. Beast Boy looked down at the counter again and rested his head in his hands.

"Yea…I-I know," he spoke dejectedly. She paused.

"You really miss her huh?" she then asked.

"Yea!" he said brightly, looking up and staring out the windows at the dark skyline. The only sources of light now were the stars and brilliant specs of gold light emanating from the few buildings that could be seen from the tower. Somehow, seeing this raised his spirits a bit.

"I mean, she was the only one who never talked to me like I was younger than her, or called me dumb, or anything," he said. Then, his face lit up with a smile.

"And she always, _always_ laughed at all the stuff I did, whether or not it was really funny," he added. For a moment, he continued smiling. Then all of a sudden, his face fell and he looked down again with disheartened eyes.

"Plus," he started, "she was like, my only chance at ever getting a girl." Raven's face squinted in confusion.

"Why would you say that?" she asked.

"Well, think about it Raven. I mean, I don't think a girl's 'qualities of a dream date' include 'short', 'green', and 'pointy-eared',"

"Oh…," was all Raven said. She thought for a moment. How did someone respond to something like that? She did the best she could.

"Beast Boy, you know physical appearance isn't important. If some girl genuinely…cared…about you…the way you look wouldn't…matter," she blundered. Again, Raven was playing the part of a consoler, something she wasn't cut out to do.

She looked at Beast Boy and could tell he wasn't convinced.

"You're…you know…a great guy…" she said. Beast Boy's eyes widened.

"Really?" he asked incredulously, leaning toward her a bit.

'_What am I saying_?' she thought. Despite what was going on in her head, Raven continued.

"Yea," she said. "I mean, you're…kind…and considerate…" she trailed off, not believing the words coming out of her own mouth.

"You really think that?" Beast Boy asked softly, scooting even closer to Raven. Their knees were now touching, but he didn't really notice.

"Well, yeah…I guess…," she said, her voice becoming very hushed.

Their faces began to inch forward ever so slowly. It was such a subtle motion, that neither of the two actually recognized it.

"I mean, you're always trying to make people happy…," she spoke, barely above a whisper.

Their faces moved even closer together.

Suddenly, Raven realized what was going on and what was about to happen. She also realized that by now, there wasn't much she could do to stop it. The damage had been done. What was said had been said, and there was no taking it back.

When their mouths were just millimeters away from one another, Raven looked up and into his eyes. She was suddenly overcome by a strange feeling. Some strange sensation in the pit of her stomach that she remembered from somewhere before. Her heart rate instantly increased. All these changes occurring within her were brought about just by gazing into his eyes. Where there used to be grief and depression lingering in those delicate, green orbs, there was now life, fervency, and…something else she couldn't quite put her finger on.

She didn't have any more time to ponder the matter though, because at that moment, Beast Boy's eyes shut themselves, preparing for what was about to happen. Realizing this, Raven slowly closed her eyes to.

At the exact moment when her eyes had become fully shut, she felt his lips press up against hers. Strangely enough, she found herself pressing her lips against his too. That feeling that had overcome her just moments before was now overpowering. It was omnipresent throughout her entire body.

After a few moments, she found Beast Boy moving his lips against hers and leaning into her, attempting to deepen the kiss.

Raven readjusted her own face to account for the movement of his. She also found herself slightly leaning over with him. Seconds later, her arms began to move toward him. Her hands followed suit, and reached to rest on his back. They reached closer and closer and closer, until…CRACK! Something in the other room shattered.

With the sudden noise, the two were immediately snapped back to reality. The heavenly feeling that had been pervading throughout Raven's system vanished instantly. Their faces flung away from each other like magnets of the same polarity. Raven looked at Beast Boy's face to find it looking slightly panicked.

"I uhh…yea…I gotta go…umm…to bed, yea bed…umm, 'night," he sputtered hurriedly. He got up and ran, no, dashed out of the room.

Raven held her hand up to her lips, the last few seconds replaying over and over again in her mind.

The doors behind her made the familiar "swoosh" as they opened, making way for the frantic changeling. Beast Boy quickly scuttled through the doors, leaving Raven alone to _again_ ponder the strange events of the day.

* * *

**Author's Note**: BB/Rae kissing! Woooooo!...Sorry, got a little happy there. 

Anyway, hope the OOCness (out of character-ness) didn't kill you.

Another think about the reviews. When I saw all the people reviewing, let me say, that got me really motivated to write this chapter. I really wasn't planning on having this posted for another week. I really pulled the midnight oil on this one! Anyway, just let me say, I'm in highschool. Needless to say, my times limited. I wish I had more time to write, but I don't. So, I'm just saying, I probably won't be updating every two days like I did this time. This was a long weekend, so I had plenty of time, but in the future, I may not.

However, I might be more inclined to make time if you guys send in more reviews. You never know:-)

'Til next time. GoldenBlade416


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

**Author's Note**: First off, again, thank you to all of you who submitted reviews. You guys rock!

Second, there were a few reviews I wanted to respond to.

Teleportal: About the mint chocolate chip thing, I actually love that flavor! It rocks! I only put that line in there because I'm going to use it for symbolism later on. Don't worry. ...Mint chocolate chip RULES!...sorry

Regrem Erutaerc: Yes! As a matter of fact, I will be using Raven's emotions in the very next chapter. And just so I don't screw anything up, I wanna go ahead and check to make sure I have all of the colors for the emotions right.

Happy-Pink  
Timid-Grey or Gray, I don't know, lol  
Brave-Green  
Rude-Orange  
Knowledge-Yellow  
Wisdom-Brown  
Anger-Red  
Affection-Purple

Okay, so most of those I'm just guessing from small appearances from the episode "Nevermore" (which I don't own) and process of elemination. If any of these are incorrect please tell me in your next review (if you do review, which hopefully, you will).

Now, on to the story.

* * *

Chapter 3

The finish line was in sight. The two speeding cars were neck and neck. It was anyone's game…

Beast Boy's face scrunched in concentration as he leaned over, his thumb firmly situated on the throttle button. This was it! He had been racing Cyborg for the past hour and had poorly lost every single race due to the fact that his mind had been drifting back to a certain moment from the previous night. However, he was now catching up in the current race, and it was his big chance to get at least _one_ win today.

The finish line was getting closer and closer…

All of a sudden, Beast Boy's concentration unconsciously shifted. The image of Raven's lips only inches apart from his immediately occupied his mind and every thought. Her lips had been so tender and gentle, unlike what he would have expected. They had felt a bit cold, but somehow, the experience had been pleasurable.

'What am I thinking? This is Raven! Raven doesn't kiss anyone. She can't even—'

A screeching and crashing sound from the TV brought Beast Boy back from his thoughts. Cyborg had used a simple "hit-and-run move" in which he used an accelerator boost to move slightly ahead of the other car and bump it into the railing. On any normal day, such a tactic would not have caused Beast Boy's car to crash, but because his mind had once again drifted to Raven, he had not been paying enough attention to avoid the move.

"Dang BB," Cyborg said. After winning sixteen games in a row, he had given up cheering. "I just beat you with a hydrogen boost. And you lost all those other races too…worse than normal, I mean. What's up with you today?"

"Nothing Cy," Beast Boy lied. "I just didn't get much sleep last night."

"Oh. Maybe you better go take a nap or somethin'. We got field practice this afternoon, and you remember what happened last time you dozed off at practice…"

"Yea, I guess you're right." Beast Boy spoke detachedly "Catch ya later." He got up and exited the room. In truth, he wasn't that tired. Though he had lost _some_ sleep worrying about what had happened with Raven last night, he really did manage to get to sleep at a decent hour. His concentration was only suffering because that image of her lips so close to his kept reappearing in his head every so often.

As Beast Boy was walking down the hallway to his room, he passed another door: the door that opened up to the roof.

'Hmm…' he thought. Raven always goes up to the roof to meditate and junk. Maybe that would be a good place for him to sort this out.

With that, Beast Boy climbed the stairs leading to the roof. He opened the door at the top and was greeted by the sun's bright, golden rays. As he walked to the edge of the area, he was forced to squint his eyes a bit.

Finally, Beast Boy reached the edge of the roof and looked out at the sea surrounding the tower. It was rippling with small waves that glistened and shined in the sun. The water gently slapped the rocks on the shore around the base of the island. The constant rhythmic pulse of the sea was somewhat calming to his previously tense nerves. After a few moments, Beast Boy began to think.

'Raven…Raven, Raven, Raven…' he thought.

Beast Boy had kissed Raven…Raven had kissed him. That was the blatant, irrefutable reality. What did it mean though? Raven was a very complicated and reserved person. It wasn't like her to go around kissing people…especially him. Besides, her powers strictly prohibited this. She couldn't show emotion towards someone; she might cause something to blow up or melt.

Then, Beast Boy was struck by another thought. What did it matter? Why was it important whether she liked him that way or not? He certainly didn't like her like that…did he?

Beast Boy admitted (to himself, Raven would have killed him if he told her) that she was pretty hot. She had nice legs, good hips, and everything else was…agreeably proportioned. Then again, Starfire was pretty too, but he wasn't having any problems like this with _her_.

Raven also looked kinda cool when her cape blew around in the wind. And her nice, flowing, straight hair danced in tangles around her pale face.

'Ahh…her face' Beast Boy mused. He recalled the way the dark, ravishing color of her eyes matched her hair and contrasted her delicate features. When looking into her pupils, it seemed they went in forever, which was how long he could stare into them. And then…there was her gentle, succulent lips—

'No!' Beast Boy stopped himself, realizing what he was thinking about Raven. 'I don't like her like that. And she _definitely_ doesn't like me like that. She barely likes me at all.'

He sighed.

'Then why did she kiss me?' he asked himself, defeated. He raised his hand to his forehead.

"Dude, why does this stuff have to be so confusing?" he asked nobody.

By now, it was around noon and the sun had risen even higher in the sky. Beast Boy found himself getting a bit hot, not to mention sweaty. Wiping his hand across his forehead, he turned around and began to walk back inside.

When he finally got to the door, he reached for the knob. Before he grabbed it though, it turned on its own.

"Gah!" Beast Boy yelped, jumping back.

He calmed down when the door opened and it was only Raven who stepped out. His brief period of composure immediately dissipated when he remembered his current…"situation" with Raven.

Beast Boy merely stood, paralyzed by her presence. Eventually, she closed the door and looked up. Upon seeing Beast Boy, she jumped.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't know anyone else was up here." She said with a slight tone of apprehension in her voice.

"Yea. I uhh, guess I'm really not up here that often." Beast Boy stuttered.

"Mhmm."

A brief moment of silence followed. It seemed that awkward situations between the two just weren't going to end. Finally, Raven spoke.

"Well, I'll just…go then."

"Oh no, uhh, that's okay. I was actually just leaving." Beast Boy stopped her.

"Oh, okay…Bye then." Raven said.

Beast Boy paused, realizing that he was going to have to walk right by Raven in order to get back inside.

"Yeah…cya." He said.

With that, Raven began walking away from the door and Beast Boy started toward it. As expected, the two's paths collided. They were now right in front of each other. Yet another awkward silence pervaded the area.

"Uhh…sorry." Beast Boy muttered. He stepped aside, not wanting to upset Raven.

"Thanks." She said as she began walking away. At this, Beast Boy also continued walking toward the door.

For a brief second, their hands brushed as they walked past each other. Both noticed this action, but neither said anything about it, and acted as though it hadn't happened. Unbeknownst to each other though, both of their faces became considerably red. However, they both continued to act as though nothing in the world had occurred. Beast Boy walked back into the air-conditioned tower, leaving Raven to do what she always came up here to do: think.

Leaning on the edge of the roof, not far from where Beast Boy had been minutes ago, she began to sort things out in her mind.

'What have I gotten myself into?' she thought with a sigh. 'I kissed Beast Boy…Oh Azar!'

In her head, Raven replayed the scene from the previous night. All the things they had talked about. What she had said about Beast Boy. When he had kissed her…

'That's right!' she thought. '_He_ kissed _me_.'

Raven contemplated this for a moment.

'Well, maybe I was kissing him too…just slightly.' She told herself.

As Raven continued to mull over the event, she recalled the feeling she had gotten before and while kissing Beast Boy. It was something she had never felt before. This sudden urge to be close to him and never let him go. But what did it mean? Why was she feeling it? She certainly didn't like him…did she? Of course not! She couldn't stand him half the time because he was bugging the crap out of her. He was constantly joking and bantering and…it just made her want to strangle him! She couldn't stand him! And he'd had the nerve to kiss her!

"That stupid twit!" Raven shouted, banging her hands on the railing. She was practically seething with anger.

Slowly, Raven regained her composure. Her body relaxed and she sighed.

"Who am I kidding?" she asked nobody. "I kissed him too…But why?"

As she asked herself this, Raven remembered that Beast Boy could be nice at times. After all, he had been the only one to sympathize with her after Malchior had broken her heart. Plus, he may have been an idiot, but he was, by no stretch of the mind, an unkind person. He had nearly gone insane when he thought he'd hurt her during the "Beast incident". He was also just generally a happy person, or so it appeared. It seemed he always had _something_ to smile about.

'Ahh…his smile' she thought. 'He _does_ look cute when he smiles. And sometimes he opens his mouth just a little bit and you can see his cute little fangs and…ohh.'

That feeling that Raven had felt last night was beginning to take over her body again. However, she noticed the change and quickly snapped out of her reverie.

"What am I thinking?" she spoke out loud. "I don't like him! That's all there is to it!"

'Then what is that feeling I keep getting?' she found herself asking once again.

She then thought of a way to discover the source of her problems. Raven decided that in order to get to the bottom of this new "emotion", or whatever it was, she should enter her mind. There she could consult her emotions about it. Perhaps she might even run into the source of this newfound feeling.

Raven walked back to the door and stepped inside the air-conditioned building. She continued walking until she reached her room. Once inside the darkened room, she faintly spotted her magic mirror lying on the dresser. As she went to retrieve it though, the alarm sounded and flashing red lights went off all over the room.

Raven sighed in annoyance and set off for the commons room, deciding to enter her mind another time. By the time she arrived, all the other titans had already gathered.

"What's happening now?" she asked, slightly irritated that her business had been interrupted.

"It's the Hive…and Cinderblock, down in sector 14. Titans, move out!" Robin responded urgently.

The rest of the titans sprinted out the door. Raven, still a bit perturbed, took her own pace.

"Great, them _again_." She scowled, then walked out the door and began to catch up with the others.

* * *

"Titans, Go!" Robin shouted as the rest of the group sprang into action. Cyborg sent a blast from his sonic cannon at Mammoth. Starfire picked up Robin and flung him at Cinderblock, where he began to throw bird-o-rangs at the villain. Beast Boy morphed into a rhinoceros and charged at Gizmo. Raven flew at Jinx and sent a ray of black energy at her. 

"I don't know how all of you managed to escape prison, but you won't be out for long!" Raven shouted at Jinx.

"My, aren't you cocky today." Jinx spoke calmly as she dodged Raven's attack.

Meanwhile, Robin and Starfire were already near to subduing Cinderblock. Starfire had kept him distracted, while Robin's attacks weakened him. He threw a final bird-o-rang at the villain, while Starfire shot a large starbolt at him. Their combined attacks resulted in a bright flash and small explosion. Cinderblock swaggered, then fell over, shaking the ground.

Up the street, Cyborg was running towards Mammoth, hoping to detain the villain before he had the chance to recover from the previous attack. Unfortunately, Mammoth was already up before Cyborg got to him. This did not deter Cyborg though; he simply continued to charge. Eventually, the two collided and wrestled each other in a power struggle. Struggling to keep Cyborg at bay, Mammoth spoke.

"Getting tired?"

"Nope!" Cyborg replied grinning. At this, he quickly removed his right hand out of Mammoth's. He then brutally punched the large man in the stomach, sending him flying back.

This time, Mammoth was so dazed that he didn't have time to recover. By the time he could get on his own two feet, Cyborg had completely subdued and handcuffed him.

Back down the street a bit, Raven and Jinx were still fighting. Jinx sent pink waves across the ground, knocking Raven over before she had time to react. Some of the buildings around them began to crack slightly because of her magic, but it was nothing serious.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven shouted once she regained her composure. The two lampposts on both sides of the street were surrounded by a black aura as they bent down and wrapped their ends around Jinx. Raven walked over to her, watching the witch struggle to get free.

"It's time to send you back where you belong: prison." Raven said.

"That's what you think!" Jinx grunted as she broke free of her bindings, sending a flash of magical energy from her body.

Raven closed her eyes due to the brightness of the flash. She reopened them just in time to see Jinx running at her. The witch sent an onslaught of punches at Raven, who blocked or caught every one. Suddenly, Jinx kicked Raven's shins, sweeping her feet out from under her. She raised her hands and sent a powerful hex at Raven. Unbeknownst to Jinx though, Raven had phased into the ground right before it hit her. The hex landed, sending debris and dust everywhere. Jinx smiled in satisfaction. However, when the dust cleared and Raven was nowhere to be found, that smile turned to a look of confusion.

Jinx felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around only to be hit square in the face by a burst of Raven's magic, sending her skidding a few feet back.

All the while, Beast Boy had been fighting with Gizmo nearby. Beast Boy turned into a pterodactyl and flew high into the air. He turned around and swooped down at Gizmo. This attack however, was unsuccessful, as the techno-boy simply dodged the pterodactyl and left a string of bombs in his wake.

Luckily for Beast Boy, he was quick enough to notice this maneuver and turned around just in time to avoid the bulk of the bombs. He managed to escape with only very slight burns to his left side.

Meanwhile, Cyborg, having handcuffed Mammoth, went to join Robin and Starfire in watching the two remaining titans battle.

"Friends! Release the can of 'butt whoop' on the villains!" Starfire shouted excitedly.

All of a sudden, a rumbling shook the ground behind the three. They all turned around to see Cinderblock rising, ready to continue demolishing the city.

"Here we go again," Robin sighed, taking a bird-o-rang off his belt.

Robin threw the bird-o-rang at the giant rocky villain. It hit him square in the chest and exploded. Cinderblock was knocked back a few feet, but quickly recovered. Annoyed, he sent his fists crashing down to the nearest moving thing, which happened to be Cyborg. The half-metal man jumped back in surprise, barely dodging the onslaught. Once he skidded to a stop, Cyborg charged his sonic cannon, and shot it straight at the monster's face. Cinderblock immediately grabbed his head to assuage the pain.

Starfire took this momentary distraction as an opportunity to attack. She flew up to the villain, starbolts prepared. Once she got close however, Cinderblock started to flail around in rage, since he had been temporarily blinded. The girl managed to dodge most of the flailing, but was eventually hit and knocked back through the air. After regaining her composure, her eyes began to glow green and she began charging her starbolts. A few moments later, a large mass of glowing, green light had gathered around Starfire's fists. With a yell, she released the oversized starbolt and sent it heading for Cinderblock. The ball of energy quickly collided with him, resulting in a large explosion that sent dust and debris into the air. Once it had cleared slightly, Cinderblock jumped out and charged at Starfire and Cyborg, who still couldn't see through all the powder in the air.

Cinderblock raised his fists, still running toward his unsuspecting victims. Right before he could strike, a bird-o-rang collided with him. It exploded, then surrounded him with ice.

"Starfire! Cyborg! Are you guys okay?" Robin shouted. The dust had finally cleared, allowing the heroes to see once again.

"Yes, we are undamaged Robin," Starfire said as she gently landed on the ground next to Cyborg.

"This isn't workin'. We need a strategy, and fast. That ice won't hold him long," Cyborg said with irritation.

"Agreed," Robin said. "Starfire, can you carry Cyborg up onto Cinderblock?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Good, once, you're up there Cyborg, start hitting him with all your strength. Starfire, once you get Cyborg up there, come back down and help me attack his legs. Hopefully, that will be enough to divide his attention and defeat him."

The frozen figure of Cinderblock began to tremble behind them.

"It's better than nothing. Let's do this!" Cyborg shouted.

"Go!" Robin yelled once Cinderblock broke completely free of his icy prison.

Back down the street, Beast Boy was still up against Gizmo. The villain had recovered from his previous attack without trouble. Beast Boy landed on the ground and resumed his human form. He pondered which shape to take next, but had to decide quickly, seeing as Gizmo was running straight at him. Simply to save himself from the oncoming danger, he transformed into a mountain goat and used his horns to block the villain. Gizmo bounced off of Beast Boy's head and landed a few yards back.

Now feeling a bit more confident, Beast Boy gathered all of his strength and charged at the villain. Gizmo however, was far from defeated. He quickly recovered and stood up again. In annoyance Gizmo readied a rocket that he could attach to Beast Boy and use to send him flying. Beast Boy, completely oblivious to this plan, continued to run at Gizmo. At the last second possible, Gizmo pulled out the rocket and swiftly attached it to the green mountain goat.

Now, Beast Boy was being shot straight up into the air. Needless to say, he was a bit disconcerted. It took him a second to realize that he was in the air because of a giant rocket strapped to his back. Once he acknowledged this though, he devised a plan. He immediately morphed into a small bird, allowing the rocket's grip to slide right off. Once he was freed, he morphed into a large hippopotamus and began tumbling down to the earth.

"Oh," was the last thing Gizmo said as he looked up and the giant green hippo came crashing down upon him.

Not twenty feet away, Raven was still battling Jinx. It seemed her luck was finally beginning to turn around. Her last strike had made a direct hit on Jinx and sent her a few feet backward. While Jinx was getting up and regaining her composure, Raven phased into the ground and disappeared. Once Jinx was up again, she looked around with a confused expression, noticing that Raven was no longer there. However, she was no idiot. She knew that Raven was going for a surprise attack; she just wasn't sure how. In an effort to save herself, Jinx sent out a wave of her magic in all directions. Right after that, she somersaulted of the asphalt and watched with a smile as the entire street she had just been standing on collapsed; if the goth-girl had been hiding underground, there was no way she was still conscious. She also noted that the already cracked buildings around her became even more damaged because of the presence of her hexes.

As turned to leave, however, she was met with a punch in the face from Raven, who had apparently been able to foresee the attack and evade it. In desperation, Jinx sent out a wave of hexes at the goth. Raven though, was prepared. With a shout of her usual mantra, she shot a blast of energy at Jinx. The blast plowed through Jinxes magic and squared directly on her, knocking the witch out.

Nearby, Beast Boy, got up off of Gizmo's crushed body and resumed his human form. He looked down to see that Gizmo was indeed, unconscious. He smiled at his victory and turned around to find the others. However, in his glee, he had forgotten something: the rocket. The rogue projectile was now sporadically traveling in random directions. Normally, it wouldn't have been much of a problem. However, it was now a danger because many of the surrounding buildings had been damaged by Jinx's hexing magic. These new damages had caused the walls to become very weak. Any sort of impact would cause a torrential downpour of debris and rubble.

As Beast Boy began to walk away, he heard a crash and boom. He turned around to see the rocket crash into one of the damaged buildings. Pound after pound of stone and brick broke off and began raining down. As luck would have it, they were headed strait for Beast Boy…

* * *

**Author's Note**: Dun dun dun...Ooo, a really bad cliffhanger. Sorry about that, but you'll be okay. Anyway, I'll try to have the next chapter up as soon as possible, so I don't leave you guys insuspense for too long. I also think you'll like where I take this little situation. 

Okay, I'd also like to apologize for taking so long to get this chapter posted. The first part gave me major writer's block, and I had a butt load of stuff to do this week.

However, you guys are all still alive (I hope), and this should keep you going till chapter 4.

Til' next time. GoldenBlade416


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Okay, I have to go soon so I don't have much time. Sorry this took so long, but a scene took longer than I thought. Anyway, here's the story.

**Disclaimer** I don't own Teen Titans.

* * *

Chapter 4

Starfire quickly grabbed Cyborg under the arms and dashed into the air. Dodging Cinderblock's flying fists, she eventually made it over the top of the villain. As quickly as she had arrived, she dropped Cyborg onto Cinderblock's back and left to assist Robin. On her way down, the giant criminal had nearly struck her with his giant fist, but Starfire, in a great display of her extra-human strength, had actually caught the fist with her bare hands and flung it back at him.

Cyborg was pounding on Cinderblock like there was no tomorrow. The villain was trying to swat Cyborg off; however, he was unable to, due to the fact that he couldn't see his backside. So Cyborg continued to concussively pound on his head and back while he flailed around in a vain attempt to defend himself.

Things got even worse for Cinderblock when Starfire arrived back on the ground. She and Robin teamed up and began relentlessly attacking the criminal's lower half, distracting his attention from Cyborg. Robin pulled out his bo staff and began pounding on Cinderblock's left leg, while Starfire readied her starbolts and pelted them at his right. This of course irritated him greatly. He lifted his right leg off the ground and thrust it angrily at Starfire.

"Eeep!" Starfire squealed as she moved out of way. Her surprise quickly turned to fury as she regained her composure and thrust a large bolt of energy at Cinderblock's foot. The giant baddie lifted his wounded foot and began to assuage the injury. Once the pain subsided, he turned his attention to Robin who, unlike Starfire, couldn't bolt into the air and quickly dash away from any attack. Cinderblock raised his foot even higher and prepared to bring it down on Robin. Just in the nick of time, Starfire darted next to Robin and _held_ Cinderblock's foot above them.

She struggled for a moment against the pressure, then with her second display of strength for the day, shoved Cinderblock down the road. He staggered back quite a few steps, but luckily for Cyborg, he didn't actually fall over.

"Whew, that was a close one. Good work Starfire." Robin stated, slightly awed. The entire team knew about Starfire's enormous strength, but it was always quite a sight to Robin when he actually saw Starfire lift something over ten times her size.

"You are most welcome Robin!" she responded elatedly, giving him a punch on the shoulder. A roar from Cinderblock though, brought them out of their conversation and back to the battle before them.

"Come on, we gotta help Cyborg!" Robin yelled as he immediately ran back to the fight. Starfire followed suit, levitating into the air with her eyes and hands glowing green.

Cyborg, like Robin and Starfire, had been making very little progress. To quicken the pace, he decided to up his attack a bit. He transformed his hand into his sonic cannon. Raising his hand above him a bit, Cyborg charged the sonic blast to a setting that would hopefully cause some significant damaged. In a brilliant display of light, he sent the treacherous beam down upon Cinderblock. The villain roared in pain and turned around to thrash whatever enemy had caused it. However, when he turned around, Cyborg was still latched onto his back, so nobody was there.

Starfire took this moment to attack. She sent blazing lasers out of her eyes (missing Cyborg of course). Cinderblock turned to face her again, only to be pummeled all over by large, scorching starbolts. He staggered backwards, bellowing in pain. Cyborg, who had now climbed off Cinderblock's back and was standing on solid ground, fired another blast from his sonic canon. This blow had finally done too much. Cinderblock fell over face-first, shaking the ground on impact.

After a moment, Cinderblock regained his thoughts. Slowly, he craned his neck and lifted his head. For a minute, he surveyed the surrounding scene. It seemed as if there was no one there and his enemies had left. Figuring his opponents were gone, Cinderblock moved as if to get up. All of a sudden, Robin returned from hiding, his bo staff in hand. In one swift movement, he delivered a forceful blow straight to Cinderblocks face. Upon impact, a loud 'pop' sounded throughout the immediate vicinity. Cinderblock was again laying face down, but was now unconscious.

"Are we victorious?" Starfire asked anxiously.

"I…think so. He isn't moving." Robin responded.

"All my scanners are sayin' he's out cold." Cyborg said. Robin exhaled.

"Good. Then let the authorities take it from here. I'm beat. Let's find Beast Boy and Raven and go home." Robin said tiredly.

"Sounds like a plan to me." Cyborg added as they walked off.

* * *

After defeating Jinx, Raven had come up with the same plan as Robin: find the others and go home. However, no one else was around. It seemed as if Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire's fight with Cinderblock had drifted down a few blocks. And Azar only knew where Beast Boy was, not that Raven really felt like confronting him at the moment anyway. 

All of a sudden, a loud booming sound resounded throughout the area. Immediately, Raven knew there was danger. She quickly ran in the direction it seemed the sound had come from. She turned the corner and her face cringed in horror. There was Beast Boy, standing helplessly on the sidewalk. Above him, stones and debris from the adjacent building were quickly pummeling toward his small body. By now, the rubble was over half the way to him and it was too late; there was nothing Raven could do but watch the last millisecond of Beast Boy's life play out before her shocked, terror-stricken eyes.

Then, as if from nowhere, a giant bubble of black energy appeared over Beast Boy. Some of the wreckage rebounded off the dark force field like bouncy balls, while the rest of it shattered upon impact.

Once the downpour of stones ended, the energy dissipated, leaving just a very flustered Beast Boy standing in the middle of the road. He had been utterly oblivious to the entire situation until now, and simply stood there shocked, looking like…well like he had narrowly missed being hit by a ton of bricks.

Raven was also extremely shocked, possibly more so than Beast Boy (which was saying something). What had just happened? One second, Beast Boy was about to be pummeled to death by thirty times his body weight in concrete, then the next, he was standing safely under a force field of Raven's powers. But she hadn't done it, not consciously anyway; she hadn't had time. Raven would have had to shout her mantra in order to conjure her powers. By the time she could have even said "Azarath—" though, Beast Boy would have been crushed. Something had happened. Her powers had used themselves. The only question was how it had happened.

"Raven?"

What could have caused it to happen? Nothing like this had ever occurred before.

"Raven?"

Theoretically, anything could be the cause. Raven admitted her powers were very complicated. Any number of things could be the root of the problem—

"RAVEN!"

"WHAT!" she finally shouted, exiting her thoughts. She looked up from the ground to see Beast Boy standing directly in front of her. She merely stared at him as he looked at her. At the moment, she really didn't want to interact with him given the whole 'kiss' incident. Plus, she had no time for idle conversations; she needed to go home to get to the bottom of what had just happened.

"Uhh…Thanks. I guess I sort of…wasn't paying attention." He said blushingly. Raven's normal, unemotional, and slightly annoyed countenance returned.

"Whatever." she responded, irritated. "Let's just find the others and go."

"Uh, yeah." Beast Boy agreed. The two walked off in search of the rest of the team. They didn't have to look long though, as Robin, Starfire, and Cyborg came into view after rushing around a nearby street corner. The group quickly ran up to Beast Boy and Raven with worried looks on their faces.

"Hey y'all, is everything okay?" Cyborg asked, slightly out of breath.

"Yes, we heard a blast and came searching." Starfire added.

"Uh, yeah. We're okay. Just one of Gizmo's rocket, blasto thingies." Beast Boy explained, adding corresponding hand motions.

"Good to hear." Robin began. "Are Gizmo and Jinx taken care of? We already got Mammoth and Cinderblock into custody."

"Yeah, I got Gizmo." Beast Boy answered.

"Jinx is unconscious down the street, now can we go?" Raven questioned hurriedly. All in twenty-four hours she had practically made out with Beast Boy _and_ unconsciously used her powers to save his life. She desperately needed to get home to sort out all of these events and she was beginning to lose patience.

"Well yeah, I guess so. Let's go." Cyborg said before the group began the trip home.

* * *

The five teens entered the commons area through the door leading to the elevator. They all walked off in their own directions to tend to their own agendas. Beast Boy turned to go to the couch. Robin started toward the evidence room to make a routine inspection. Starfire, of course, followed Robin. Cyborg went to the kitchen. Raven immediately headed to the hallway connected to her bedroom. She was almost out of the room when… 

"Hey!" Shouted Cyborg. "I say we all cook up some hot dogs to celebrate the victory! Whose in?"

"Sounds great Cy!" Robin said, changing his direction and moving to the kitchen.

"That would be marvelous!" Starfire chimed as she followed.

"Only if mine's tofu." Beast Boy said.

"Yea, yea. Don't get your underwear in a bunch veggie-boy." Cyborg responded with an 'oh-here-we-go-again' look on his face. "What about you Raven? You know you want some?"

Raven stopped in her tracks, only inches away from the door. She had been so close…

"I _want_ to be alone." She responded coldly. "I'll be in my room."

With that, she walked out of the room, leaving her friends to ponder her behavior.

"She must be in one of her moods." Cyborg stated as he prepared the food and utensils.

"Yeah…uh," Beast Boy stammered, secretly knowing that it might have had more to do with him. "That must be it."

Raven entered her room and shut the door behind her. Her pupils dilated as the sudden familiar darkness washed over her and blanketed her body. Before reaching for her mirror, she sat down on the bed to rest and think for a moment. She was still completely bewildered as to how her powers had managed to trigger themselves without her conscious consent. She reenacted the scene in her head, constantly searching for any clue or sign leading to a possible cause. Drawing up a blank, she got up and walked over to her magic mirror. As she peered into it, a portal opened. She stepped in and once again, found herself in the recognizably eerie land that was her mind.

Raven knew exactly which one of her personalities she wanted to consult: Knowledge. The only problem was finding her. Currently, none of her emotions were nearby.

"Great." Raven sighed. "I'm going to have to look for her."

Her search actually didn't take as long as she thought. After just a minute or so of walking, Raven found Timid hiding behind a small boulder. She approached the small, turtle-like emotion cautiously, knowing well she could easily frighten her away.

"Hey, have you seen Knowledge anywhere? It's imperative that I talk to her." Raven asked Timid, trying to sound as gentle as she could. Timid didn't look up, but merely lifted her hand and pointed to a far off location.

"They're over there. _All_ of them. Even Rage. I stayed out here so she wouldn't hurt me." Timid replied pathetically.

"Thanks." Raven replied as she began walking in the direction Timid had pointed.

Raven eventually found herself in a clearing. There were a few rocks and pits here and there, but all in all, it wasn't the rough terrain that was present in most of the areas of her mind.

She spotted many her emotions scattered throughout the clearing. Happy and Brave were sitting down a few feet away, apparently discussing something that was quite humorous. Next to them was Crass, asleep as usual. Rage, as Timid had said, was present. She was off to the side alone, probably scowling at the overbearing joy of Happy and Brave. In the center of it all was Wisdom who was hovering just above the ground chanting Raven's mantra over and over again. Raven also noted that there was an extremely large pile, nearly a wall, of books off in the distance, but for what purpose they were there, she didn't know.

Raven counted all of the emotions could see, also accounting for her meeting with Timid before arriving at her current location. They were all there, save Knowledge, the one she actually wanted to see. She reluctantly decided to ask Wisdom where Knowledge had gone off to. She didn't really want to talk to Wisdom, since the emotion always spoke ambiguously in questions or riddles; however, she was also the only one present that was remotely level-headed, making her the only real option.

With that, Raven began to walk over to where Wisdom was meditating. All she had to do was get by Happy without her noticing…

"Hey look, it's Raven!" an ecstatic voice shouted.

Raven groaned as the rapturous emotion sprung of the ground and bounced her way over to her. It looked like she would _have_ to talk to her.

"What's up Rave? Long time no see huh?" Happy asked with impossible enthusiasm.

"Nothing," Raven replied coldly. She just wanted to find Knowledge and fix whatever had caused the earlier incident with her powers. She had no interest in chit-chatting with Happy.

"Aww come on! What do ya mean 'nothing'? Lots o' stuff's been happening." Happy said. Then, a devious smirk played across her usually pure smile. "Especially with Beast B—"

"_Don't_ finish that sentence." Raven cut her off tersely. "Just tell me if you've seen Knowledge anywhere."

"Ol' four-eyes? Nope, sorry. Ask Wisdom. She might know."

"Great." Raven muttered as she began to walk away.

"See ya later alligator!" Happy called out to her, waving.

"Whatever." Raven said, not even turning to face the blissful emotion.

Before she knew it, Raven found herself standing behind her brown-cloaked self, Wisdom. She had her back to Raven, and was still meditating.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos…" she spoke.

"I need to talk to you." Raven said, getting strait to the point.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos…" Wisdom repeated. Raven sighed. This could take a while.

"I just need to ask you something." Raven spoke again.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos…"

Raven patience was wearing thin.

"I just need to know where Knowledge is! Can you at least spare me that!" she shouted. At this, Wisdom stopped repeating her mantra, but remained in her meditative position, her back from Raven.

"Your search is pointless." She suddenly spoke. "What you seek, you already possess. That is my only advice. Take it for what you will." Raven sighed and shook her head.

"You're just never going to give me a reasonable answer are you?" she asked.

"Perhaps when you start asking reasonable questions." Wisdom retorted. She finally turned her head around to face Raven. As it turned out, she actually had a sly smile on her face. Raven however, was not amused.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, both puzzled and irritated…mostly irritated. Wisdom paused.

"You don't need to look for Knowledge. After all, she is just another part of you. She can tell you nothing you yourself don't already know. She knows everything you know; no more, no less." Wisdom told her.

"Yes, but she can tell me the meaning of the things I…we know. That's what I need. I already know _what_ is happening. I just need to know what it means and why." Raven replied. Wisdom's smile quickly turned to a frown.

"You already know what the situation means. You just need to come out of denial and accept it." Wisdom said, pronouncing the word "it" as though she were using it to refer to something other than what the two were talking about. When she said this, Raven again became puzzled.

"Accept what?" she asked Wisdom.

At this, the brown-cloaked emotion turned her face away from Raven again and fell silent.

"She's behind the large pile of books, reorganizing." She said all of a sudden.

"What?" Raven questioned.

"Knowledge. You wanted to speak with her correct? I said she's behind that large pile of books over there."

"Oh…right." Raven said.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos," was Wisdom's only reply.

Seeing that she obviously would get nothing more from Wisdom, Raven headed toward the large mound of books. Upon looking behind them, she found Knowledge surrounded by more, smaller piles of books, just like Wisdom had told her. Knowledge was taking books from random places around her and frantically placing them in different piles.

"What are you doing?" Raven asked her.

"Reorganizing." Knowledge said closing a book and placing it in the pile in front of her. "I have to. Your thoughts and feelings have been greatly piling up as of late. I had to come up with a new organizational system if an efficient order is to be maintained."

"Oh," Raven replied, wondering how her "thoughts and feelings" could become so overwhelmingly abundant. "Well, listen. I need to talk to you about something. It might be serious." Knowledge remained silent, reading over something in a book she was holding. It almost seemed as if she hadn't heard Raven.

"I understand." She said at last. "My current task is almost complete. Just wait a few more moments while I finish. In the meantime, you can wait wherever you wish."

"Thank you." Raven said, pleased that she might finally be close to getting somewhere.

Raven walked around the vicinity a bit, marveling at the large amount of books Knowledge had brought with her. It looked as though she might even have more books than Raven kept in her room!

As she was observing the different texts, Raven came across a particularly large stack in which the top book was labeled "CURRENT AQUAINTENCES". Looking down the stack, she noticed that it was divided into four sections. At the top of each section was a book titled after one of the Titan's names. Underneath each of these books were many smaller books with qualities and experiences Raven had shared with her friends. On the top was "ROBIN" with such things as "BATTLE TACTICS" and "HELP WITH TRIGON" under it. Next was "STARFIRE" with "SEMI-USEFUL GIRL TALK". The book labeled "CYBORG" was on top of titles like "CAR-FIXING" and "COMPUTER USAGE". The last section was heavily, almost oppressively buried underneath all the other sections. It was labeled "BEAST BOY". Beneath the top book, there were texts called "ANNOYANCES", "GRIEVANCES", and "SENSELESS BANTER". Beneath those however, were titles such as "GOOD QUALITIES", "SENSE OF CARING", and "COMFORTING".

Raven also noticed one last book in Beast Boy's section. It was at the very bottom, detained underneath every other book in the entire stack. It was turned the opposite direction, with the spine and title facing away from her. For this reason, she couldn't tell what it was called. She couldn't move it, for the weight of the books on top of it, and she couldn't go to the other side of the stack because of the surrounding piles.

While pondering what the book might be about, she heard a very faint sigh escape from someone nearby. It sounded extraordinarily calm, as if its source was innocuous, but it also had a longing, almost desperate quality to it.

Raven walked in the source of the sound. She turned the corner around a stack of books and saw a small figure sitting on the ground, propped up against another pile. Upon taking in the girl's appearance, Raven's eyes widened in shock. She had a fit figure, pale skin, and dark hair. She looked _exactly _like Raven, save for the fact that she was wearing a purple cloak instead of a dark blue one. Could she be another emotion? No! That couldn't be. Raven had already accounted for all of her emotions. There were no more.

"Who are you?" Raven asked confusedly.

The girl, who had been dreamily staring at absolutely nothing, turned her head to face Raven. However, all she did was smile shyly and turn away to continue staring into space.

Raven was not pleased and became irate at this. She was sick and tired of being ignored inside her own mind. Angrily, she grabbed the girl's hand and yanked her off the ground. She hastily hauled her back to where Knowledge was sorting through her books and tossed the mysterious girl at the emotion's feet.

"Who is _she_?" Raven asked bluntly.

"Her?" Knowledge questioned calmly, acknowledging the purple cloaked girl.

"Yes her! Who is she!" Raven again asked, growing impatient. The purple-cloaked girl righted herself and resumed her sitting position as she continued to stare longingly into the distance.

"You do not know? She is merely another one of your emotions. That seems a very significant thing to be unaware of." Knowledge answered. Raven was dumbfounded.

"What do you mean? I can't gain any new emotions. It's impossible!" Raven stated.

"I am aware of this. But you have not gained any new emotions. You have always possessed the capacity to experience this feeling. _She_ has always been her."

"Then why have I never seen her before?" Raven asked, confused again.

"Because you do not feel her very often. She was prominent throughout your mind… once. At the time however, you were too busy to come here. Therefore, you never saw her."

"Okay fine. Then what is she?" Raven asked.

"I just told you. She is an emotion." Knowledge stated matter-of-factly. Raven groaned.

"I meant _which_ emotion?" Raven spoke with irritation. Knowledge thought for a moment.

"For once, I think I'm going to let _you_ figure it out. You are growing up, and it's about time you started learning how to sort out your problems on your own." She said. "And don't bother asking her what she is either."

"Fine." Raven grumbled, admitting defeat. She was simply too tired to argue. She had just wanted to come here to solve the problem with her powers. Now it had practically turned into an adventure all its own.

"Good then." Knowledge said. "Now, just give me a few more minutes and I'll be done."

"Fine." Raven sighed.

While Raven stood there waiting, she felt someone's eyes on her. She turned to look at the unidentified emotion. The girl had ceased gazing out into space and was now staring intently at Raven.

"What is it?" Raven asked irritably. The emotion smiled.

"Nothing." She said calmly. However, she didn't turn around. Out of the corner of her eye, Raven could see that the emotion was still staring at her. Raven again turned her head and met her unfaltering gaze.

"What do you want!" Raven shouted. At this, the girl frowned.

"What I want…" she spoke sadly, looking down. "I want…" she looked up again, still frowning. "I am you, obviously. I only seek the same things you search for. That would be _someone_. Not just anyone. Someone special. I want someone to care. Someone who makes me…us feel wanted…_desired_. I want someone who makes us feel the way _he_ did, before he…revealed himself. That's what I…we want."

"I know what you mean…" Raven responded, knowing that the girl was referring to the way she had felt when Malchior had been around. Did that mean that the girl represented the emotion—

'No, that couldn't be it' Raven said to herself. 'But what could she be?'

"I am finished." Knowledge stated as she rose from the ground. Raven instantly forgot about the possibilities of another emotion and focused on her current problem.

"Would you mind if we walked while we discuss the problem? I have been sitting for quite a while now and need to recover proper circulation." Knowledge asked before Raven had the chance to speak.

"That's fine." Raven replied.

"Good." Knowledge spoke as she began walking. "So, tell me what ails you."

"You know what's wrong." Raven told her. "After the battle earlier, my powers used themselves. I saw Beast Boy just milliseconds before he was going to be crushed. There wasn't any time for me to help; he would have been dead before I even began to use my powers. Then all of a sudden, they just…happened. I didn't do, say, or think anything; they just appeared out of nowhere."

As they continued walking, Knowledge said nothing in reply.

"I mean, I'm glad that he is okay…mostly…" Raven continued. Granted, if Beast Boy wasn't around, a few other complications in her life might not be occurring right now. However, she did not come here to worry about her situation with him. She returned to the subject. "Things like this can_not_ happen. If my powers start leaking out without my consent, then who knows what kind of problems could occur. Things might get destroyed…I could even hurt _people_."

At this last statement, Raven's voice had a tint of worry in it. Knowledge remained composed though.

"You do not know what the problem is?" she asked calmly, as if the answer was as plain as day.

"No I don't know what the problem is!" Raven snapped. "It's not like this has ever happened before!"

Again, Knowledge remained unfazed by Raven's attitude.

"Of course it has." She said. Raven stared at her.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "When?"

"You do not remember? I suppose I should work faster reorganizing your memories…" Knowledge replied. "Anyway, yes, this happened before about a year ago, or so. The rest of the Titans convinced you to watch that scary movie. And face it, afterwards, you were scared."

"Fine," Raven conceded grumpily as she recalled the event.

"So, you hastily suppressed the emotion, not wanting to admit to any form of weakness. Your emotions are what drive your powers, so when you suppressed that emotion, fear, the power from it slowly began to build up. At first it was only a small amount, and could be easily contained. However, as you continued to suppress it, the power built up more and more and more until…"

"Don't remind me." Raven said.

"So, I think you are smart enough to figure out what this means. I am, after all."

As she took time to think, Raven looked around and noted that as they walked, she and Knowledge were approaching the forbidden door, the way out of her mind and back to the sensible world of reality.

"It means that I'm suppressing another emotion?" Raven asked, reentering the conversation.

"Precisely." Knowledge said, smiling. After a moment, Raven spoke again.

"So, which emotion am I suppressing?" she asked.

"Well…" Knowledge began. The two were now standing right next to the forbidden door. "It seems our time is up."

"No." Raven said forcefully. "Tell me which emotion—"

Just then a knocking sound followed by a somewhat familiar voice faintly sounded from the portal next to the two girls.

"Ah, see, you must go. Someone has come for you." Knowledge stated. With that, she put her hand on Raven's shoulders and shoved her into the swirling, red portal.

"But I—" Raven tried to say. She never finished as she fell into the forbidden door. That familiar yet strange sensation, not unlike continuously falling, enveloped her entire body. Then, as quickly as it had come, the feeling disappeared and Raven found herself standing in her room next to her dresser.

'Damn her!' Raven thought, cursing her intellectual side.

A sudden knock from the door brought her out of her thoughts. She walked angrily over to the door and thrust it open.

"What?" she asked impatiently.

Beast Boy was standing outside the door. He had his usual toothy grin on, his fangs coming out just a bit. Raven noticed that the smile looked to be a bit forced.

"Hey Raven." He said.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Okay, again, I have to go soon. Hope this makes up for the wait. It's the longest chapter yet. 

Til' next time. GoldenBlade416


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them. I also don't own Sin City, which I briefly use in this chapter.

**Author's Note**: Alright, so here's ch. 5.

Before I start, I want to thank everyone who reviewed. As of right now, this story has 73 reviews! Translation: I'm happy. Thank you guys so much.However, I also want to give shoutouts to some special reviewers: (sorry if there are any spelling mistakes)

Firenze2000  
Gem W  
gothic goddess 14  
Tammy Tamborine  
and Regrem Erutaerc

Thanks you guys! The five of you have been with me since the very beginning and have reviewed _every single_ chapter. You rock! Also, Regrem Erutaerc has supplied me with loads if helpful information. Kudos!

Anyways, you guys are the best and I hope that you continue to review in the future! Now, chapter 5.

* * *

Chapter 5

"Beast Boy," Raven sighed. "What do you want?"

Beast Boy's goofy expression became a bit more serious.

"Well, you see…there's a…uhh…" he stammered.

"A what?" Raven asked. Her patience was already worn out from the frustrating trip to her mind. She didn't really need this right now. Especially from someone she had made out with not two days ago.

"There's a…well…technically, you don't have to…if you don't want to…but, uhh…" Beast Boy spoke again, clearly fumbling through his words.

Raven was struck by a thought. Was he asking her out? (Or from the looks of it, attempting). What would she do? Where would he take her? What should she wear? Oh, if only she'd listened to Starfire whenever they went to the mall!

"There's a meeting…in the living room…Robin said so." He suddenly blurted.

Oh.

With his last statement, Raven returned from the hypothetical world and regained her rationality. Had she really just thought Beast Boy was going to ask her out? Further more, did she think about actually saying **_yes_**?

No, really, she had skipped over that part of the process completely and gone straight to what she would do to prepare for the non-existent date. But she didn't really want to go on a date with Beast Boy…did she? They had only kissed...once…and by accident. It really didn't mean anything…right?

'Brilliant' she thought. 'My problems just get simpler and simpler don't they?'

"He said you don't really _have_ to come, but the more brains we have, the better."

"Well, then I guess that means you can just go take a nap or something, right?" Raven said rudely, hoping her brusqueness would make Beast Boy leave her alone. Apparently though, her efforts were wasted upon his innocently unaware mind.

"Heh, good one," he chuckled awkwardly. "See, you can be funny."

Raven groaned inwardly, seeing that she would have to walk with him the whole way to the living room. And no matter whether they talked or stayed in complete silence, it was going to be _very_ uncomfortable.

'Azar, why is he so nice!' she asked herself, aggravated. 'Why isn't he like any normal person who just thinks I'm weird and stays away? I mean, he _always_ does this. I keep trying to get him to just leave me alone, and he just acts nicer and nicer to me. He's so annoying!'

"So, uh…how've you…ya' know…been lately?" Beast Boy asked, breaking the silence.

"Absolutely brilliant." Raven answered with cold sarcasm as the two continued walking.

"Yeah, that's uh…nice." Beast Boy said. "I've been having a uh…good time too…I guess."

'Geez what's wrong with me? I haven't been able to say one good sentence since I started talking to her.' Beast Boy said to himself. 'I'm acting like some dumb little kid with a crush'. Out loud, he growled in frustration.

"Huh?" Raven asked as though her mind had been elsewhere before Beast Boy had made any noise.

"Oh, nothing." He replied. "I was just uh…thinking out loud."

"Mm." she replied. There was another period of deafening silence. One could have cut through the unease with a butter knife.

"Look Raven," Beast Boy began, "about the other night—"

"Don't. We're here." She cut him off, approaching the door in front of them. Beast Boy hadn't even realized how far they had gotten. Raven reached to open the door, when suddenly, it was enveloped in black energy. At first, the metal just rippled a bit, then began fizzling lightly. Finally, it simply melted away and bent to the floor. Beast Boy watched with horror-struck eyes. He had already deduced that Raven wasn't in the best of moods at the moment, but for her to simply destroy the door was a bit…scary.

"Dude, why did you--?"

"Just drop it. It's not important." She snapped and began walking away to the middle of the living room where the rest of the Titans were. Beast Boy accepted and shut his mouth, not wanting to have the same fate as the door.

"What's happening?" Raven asked as she approached the rest of the Titans, who were currently crowded around the large computer, save for Starfire who was sitting on the nearby couch.

"Nothing. We're just having a meeting to discuss the battle from this morning." Robin answered.

"Dude, what's wrong? They attacked. We beat 'em. Now they're back in jail. It's all good." Beast Boy said, hopping onto the middle of the couch next to Starfire.

"Yeah, but we don't know how they got out." Cyborg replied.

"Or why they were attacking." Robin added. "When we got there, they weren't stealing or robbing anything. We need to figure out what their motives are before they get the chance to try again. If we know they're up to beforehand, it might be easier to stop them."

"So, what do we have to go on?" Beast Boy asked, half interested.

"Well, that's the problem." Robin began.

"So far, we have come up with nothing." Starfire finished.

"But, I found a way to tap into any security cameras around where the fight happened, so we can go through those and see if we find anything." Cyborg added.

"Well then, let's do this already." Beast Boy said.

* * *

_**Three hours later... **_

"Can we just stop this already?" Beast Boy asked impatiently. They had been watching the stupid videos for hours! It was all the same. The Hive showed up with Cinderblock. Everyone in the streets ran away. The villains sat there and waited. The Titans showed up, kicked their butts, and left. Every tape showed the exact same thing from a different angle.

"I hate to agree with grass stain here," Cyborg said. Beast Boy glared at him. "But he's right. We've been doin' this for hours and haven't gotten anywhere. Let's just call it quits and watch a movie or something."

"Yeah!" Beast Boy said with newfound enthusiasm at the prospect of the dreary meeting finally coming to an end. "I heard that Sin City just came out."

"What d'you guys say?" Cyborg asked.

Raven simply pretended not to hear him. She really didn't want to sit through another two-hour movie. Robin however, really didn't hear Cyborg. He was completely focused on the surveillance footage before him.

"It just doesn't make sense." He said. "They just sat there and waited for us to show up. They didn't really _do_ anything." Cyborg scowled.

"Yep, that's right. I didn't say anything. BB just had a growth spurt, pigs are flying around, and there are asteroids of molten cheese falling from the sky, but that's alright, cuz you aren't listenin' to me anyway." Cyborg said irately. His message got across and Robin finally heard him, though his sarcasm went completely over Starfire's head.

"Oh goodness! We must do something!" she shouted, springing off the couch. "What if the flaming balls of dairy injure the pigs with their newfound flying abilities?"

"Actually Star, I was being sarcastic. I was just mad cuz boy blunder didn't hear me talkin' about watchin' a movie." Cyborg said, chuckling inwardly.

"Oh, of course." Starfire said shyly as she sat down again.

"We can watch a movie in a minute Cyborg. We're almost done." Robin said, still not taking his face from the screen before him.

"Besides," Beast Boy began. "I'll have you know, I actually _did_ have—"

"Half a centimeter doesn't count as a growth spurt BB." Cyborg cut him off, this time laughing out loud.

"Hmph." Beast Boy said as he crossed his arms and turned his head away.

"Well, I think this is the last one." Robin said, typing a few things in on the keyboard.

They all watched. As usual, there was nothing they didn't already know. The same thing from all the other footages simply replayed.

"See, nothing. Can we _please_ watch a movie now?" Beast Boy asked. The boredom was absolutely killing him.

"Wait! Go back!" Raven said all of a sudden.

"Did you see something?" Robin asked.

"Maybe." Robin began rewinding the video.

"There!" Raven said, pointing at the entrance to a dark ally. They all looked closer to see a man standing there. However, they could only see a part of him. His left half was concealed in shadow.

"So, it's just a guy." Beast Boy said, desperately trying to rush things along.

"But why was he still there?" Raven said. "Everyone else had fled by then."

"Maybe we can identify him. Cyborg, can you zoom in on his face?" Robin asked.

"I don't know." Cyborg replied. "These things are pretty low quality. I might be able to enlarge it a little and still maintain the resolution, but if I do it too much it could destroy the file."

"Do it." Robin said sternly.

"Okay." Cyborg said passively, pressing a few buttons.

The image zoomed in a bit to the man's face. The enlarged size caused the picture to become blurry and pixilated for a moment. However, the computer soon returned the picture to its previous quality.

"Again" Robin said. Though he could now see that the man had white hair, he still couldn't distinguish any of his features. The computer went through the same process as before. This time, the zoomed-in picture had lost some of its original quality. Robin sighed. It still wasn't enough.

"Again" he said. Cyborg entered the command once more. This time however, the screen went blank. A red, flashing "ERROR" message displayed across the screen. Robin jumped up.

"What happened!" he asked.

"We lost it." Cyborg replied. "Just as well though. We've been doing this way too long. I say we take up me and BB's movie idea."

Robin sighed. "Yeah, ok." He conceded.

"Glorious! I shall prepare the food." Starfire shouted, soaring off toward the kitchen. Everyone grimaced.

"Someone wanna go help her with that?" Cyborg asked, his face still scrunching at the thought of whatever food Starfire might bring back.

"Yeah, I'll do it." Robin said, partly to save everyone's stomachs, partly because he enjoyed Starfire's company more than he let on. He got up from the computer and ran after her.

"Whew, am I glad that thing's over." Cyborg sighed. "We really needed to watch a movie, or take a break or _somethin'_."

"Yeah, I confer." Beast Boy chimed.

"Concur." Raven corrected.

"Huh?"

"I _concur_." She repeated.

"Oh, whatever Raven!" Beast Boy scoffed. "Who cares? You know like way too many words and junk anyway." Raven scowled.

"Yeah, you do kinda know a lot of stuff." Cyborg said. "Do you read the dictionary or somethin'?"

"No," Raven said, her annoyance rising. "Unlike you two idiots, I actually have a vocabulary to speak of."

Cyborg, who was standing right next to Raven at the moment, sensed her rising irritation and decided it would probably be safer to leave.

"Heh heh, yeah…" he stuttered. "I'll just be going to the uh…kitchen, yeah kitchen, to uh…help Robin and Star." With that, Cyborg made a mad dash away from Raven and was out of the room within seconds. Beast Boy, who was a safe distance away from the increasingly aggravated Raven, stupidly remained in the room with her.

Once Cyborg left though, Raven found herself calming down a bit, her anger subsiding. For some reason, ever since he had left her and Beast Boy alone, she began to slowly grow calmer. It was the strangest feeling, but she had no idea what caused it…

"So you do wanna watch the movie?" Beast Boy asked all of a sudden, grinning.

"When did I say that?" Raven asked.

"Well, when Cy talked about watching a movie, you did say 'I concur'."

"When I said that, I was only correcting your bad grammar." She said crankily. "If you can even deign to call it grammar at all." Raven smirked at her last comment. Not just because it was witty and insulting, but because it was the way she typically talked to Beast Boy, before the whole 'kiss' situation began. Finally, it seemed the unusual tension between the two was dissipating, and they could make fun of each other the way they normally did. Raven was glad for this, because she had really been getting sick of the thought of her and Beast Boy being together (not that the thought had really ever crossed her mind anyway). Besides, if she ignored the 'Beast Boy' issue long enough and it just went away, she could finally return her full focus to the problem with her powers.

"Oh come on Raven. I'll even let you sit next to me. You know your just dying to get near me." Beast Boy taunted suggestively. He knew he really shouldn't be egging Raven on. He knew she had been in a bad mood since he retrieved her from her room, but he continued to poke fun at her anyway for the same reason she did. Because it finally seemed that things between them were returning to normal. He was relieved that he could finally stop sounding like some love-struck twelve-year-old around her.

"Oh yeah, Beast Boy." Raven retorted sarcastically. She defiantly sat down at the end of the couch, as far from him as she could. "Like I really want to sit next to _you_." She teased.

All of a sudden, there was a giant burst of dark energy behind Beast Boy. It didn't injure him; however it did send him crashing toward the end of the couch, toward Raven.

Before he knew it, he was lying on top of her, looking extremely shocked. Raven, who was just as surprised as he was, had an equally stunned expression on her face. Neither of them said anything; neither moved. They were both too shaken up.

So much for things returning to normal again.

Without reason, they both looked at each other. Beast Boy gazed down into Raven's deep violet eyes. Raven gazed back up at his emerald ones. All of a sudden, she found an ethereal calm enveloping her. She felt Beast Boy's arms at her side, and his stomach pressed against her own. At this, that strange, flighty feeling entered her body and encompassing her very being once again. Still gazing into his eyes, she smiled unconsciously. Not meaning to, he grinned back at her.

Slowly, not fully aware of what she was doing, Raven began moving toward him. Beast Boy reciprocated her actions and began moving his mouth toward hers. After what seemed like minutes, their lips met.

In seemingly no time at all, they both became aware of what was happening. Both of their eyes widened, and Beast Boy pushed himself off of Raven as though she were scorching.

"Oh, dude, Rae…I, uh…um…" Beast Boy stuttered, trying to avoid any sort of eye contact with Raven.

"Uh…yeah…" Raven responded.

"Geez, I am like…really sorry…"

"Uh…yeah, uh-huh…whatever…" Raven stammered, for once desperately wishing something, _anything_ would disturb her. She got her wish when Starfire, Robin and Cyborg returned from the kitchen with popcorn and candy.

"Alright y'all, let's get this thing goin'." Cyborg shouted, sitting down in the new space between Beast Boy and Raven.

"Uh…yeah," Beast Boy said. "Start her up."

* * *

_** Two hours later...**_

"Man! That was so awesome!" Cyborg said once the credits began rolling. His excitement though, was met with complete silence from the rest of the group. Starfire found that, though the action was entertaining, she didn't quite understand much of the dialogue with its earthly colloquialisms. Robin really just wanted to get back to researching the cause of the attack from earlier. Beast Boy and Raven, needless to say, still hadn't gotten over what had just happened and had been uncomfortably glancing at each other the entire time.

"Well then…never mind." Cyborg mumbled.

"I'm going to my room. _Don't._ come in." Raven spoke suddenly as she rose from the couch and left.

"What's wrong with her?" Cyborg asked once Raven had left the room.

"Heh…who knows." Beast Boy replied meekly.

"Oh well." Starfire said. "I too wish to retire to my sleeping quarters for the night. Pleasant dreams friends. Goodnight Robin."

"'Night Star." Robin said. With that, Starfire got up and exited down the hallway. Robin got up and went back to the computer.

"Man that kid obsesses waaay too much." Cyborg said.

"Uh-huh…" Beast Boy responded distantly. Again, Cyborg found himself met with a lack of conversation.

"So…" he said, trying to come up with something to talk about. "What's up with you and Raven?"

"Huh?" Beast Boy said, startled at the mention of Raven's name.

"I said, what's up with you and Raven? Y'all were actin' kinda weird."

"We were not." Beast Boy scoffed. "And nothing's happening."

"Whatever." Cyborg said. "I'm just sayin' you two kept lookin' at each other and turnin' away like the whole movie."

"I don't like her!" Beast Boy yelled suddenly, standing up off the couch. Cyborg raised his hands in defense.

"Never said you did." He said. Beast Boy calmed down a bit.

"Sorry Cy." Beast Boy mumbled, sounding suddenly drained. "I'm going to bed. Later."

"Later man." Cyborg said, thinking that Beast Boy probably needed a bit of sleep, given his sudden uptightness.

Cyborg sat there on the couch for a moment, and decided it was about time for him to shut down as well. He got up and went by the computer where Robin was still diligently searching through evidence.

"You _still_ workin'?" he asked the teen.

"Yeah." Robin replied. "I just thought of something else."

"Shoot." Cyborg said.

"Well, I just figured, since when does The Hive work with Cinderblock?"

"I don't know. I guess it is kind of a new thing for them." Cyborg said, wondering.

"That's what I thought. Then, I wondered, what if it's not just them? What if they're working for someone else? Some other, higher, criminal power that's put them both together? What if they're working for--?"

"Man, if you say Slade I'll slap you of the side of the head." Cyborg said warningly.

"Think about it Cyborg. We haven't seen him since Trigon. He could be planning something. Anything." Robin said. Cyborg sighed.

"Whatever man. I'm goin' to bed. You should do that to. Later."

"Later, Cy." Robin said, his eyes still glued to the computer screen. Cyborg walked off and began the journey to his room.

"Hey! What happened to the door!"

* * *

**Author's Note**: Okay, before I go, I've got a few things to clear up for you. As for how the Titan's got the movie without renting it, I'm just gonna pretend that they have Pay-per-view. Even if they don't have it...they do now. Lol 

About Starfire, I realize that I really haven't used her for much except a fighting, Robin-obsessed, important-dialogue-lacking drone. Starfire fans, don't worry. In the next chapter or two, I'm going to give her something to say besides "I don't understand" and "Yes Robin". So don't worry.

Okay, that's all I guess. Thanks again to all reviewers!

'Til next time. GoldenBlade416


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them. I also use a restaurant in this chapter called _Breakfast n' Lunch to go._ I made this restaurant up, so it shouldn't matter, but in the event that there is some reatuarant by this name, I don't own it.

**Author's Note**: One word. SORRY!

I am soooooo sorry that this took me so long to update. October is like the worst month for marching band, we have practice 3 days a week, games on Friday, and competitions all day Saturday. Needless to say, I didn't have much time. However, marching season is over now. Completely. Fineto (sp?). Now all I have to worry about is school. So unless my classwork makes a sudden spike, which knowing my luck, it probably will, I will have much more time to write from now on.

However, some good did come out of the situation. I finally got my first "will you update already?" review. You rock blackmagicrave14! That was awesome!

Anyway, now that I'm finished giving you my life's story, here's chapter 6.

* * *

Chapter 6 

"Hmmm…" said Starfire as she perused the contents of the refrigerator. "What shall we have this morning?" Robin only yawned in response.

"I don't know Star. Just make sure there's no meat in it so Beast Boy won't freak out."

Starfire continued looking through the food contents, occasionally coming across foods that had fuzz growing over most of their surfaces. Simply ignoring them, she continued searching. They had hot dogs…no. Tofu…definitely not. Eggs…perhaps.

As she continued to look, Starfire pushed aside the numerous drink cartons they had and found something she had completely forgotten about: her Glarklemelt. It was one of Tameran's greatest delicacies, and she had just prepared it last night.

"Oh Robin! I almost forgot!" she shouted, grabbing the dish and springing toward the half-asleep boy wonder. "I prepared a Glarklemelt just last evening! And it looks as though it is ready!"

Awaiting his response, Starfire held the dish up to Robin's face. Once the smell entered his nose, his eyes shot open (and began watering), and he was instantly awake.

"You know what Star, maybe I better get Cyborg to run down to _Breakfast n' Lunch Ta Go_ for us." He said, slowly moving away from the Glarklemelt. Starfire looked suddenly downtrodden.

"What is wrong?" she asked. "You do not wish to consume my Glarklemelt?"

"No no no! It's not that." Robin saved himself. "It's just that…you know…well…you know we're about to have practice in an hour or so. Well, that means that we all need lots of carbs and stuff…for energy."

Starfire's face lit up once again. "Oh your thinking is most logical, Robin!" In all honesty, Robin had no idea what was in Starfire's dish, much less how many carbohydrates it had in it. However, he figured that if the subject ever came up, the rest of the team wouldn't be too upset about missing it.

"But you should hurry if you we are to begin the practice on time." Starfire said.

"Yea, I'll go get Cyborg and see if he'll go." Robin answered as he got up and began toward the door. When he got to the entrance to the hallway, he simply stepped over the doors, or what was left of them. He really didn't know what had happened to them, but having lived with an alien, a robot, a shape shifter, and a half-demon for so long, he learned not to question strange occurrences such as these. Besides, Cyborg could probably have it fixed by the end of the week.

After clearing the mass of metal at his feet, he accidentally ran into Raven, who had been quietly walking towards the kitchen as he was leaving.

"Oh, sorry Raven. Didn't see you there." He apologized.

"Yea, sorry." she replied half-heartedly, as though her mind were somewhere else.

Robin figured she was just having one of those days and continued on to get Cyborg. Raven went into the kitchen to prepare some of her herbal tea. She found Starfire sitting by the counter, casually spooning through some kind of concoction.

"Friend Raven!" Starfire shouted as soon as she walked into the room. "It is glorious to see you awake! I trust you had a pleasant sleep, yes?"

"Yea, I guess," replied Raven, trying to be polite. She hadn't gotten her tea yet and was still half-asleep.

Raven filled a teapot with water and set it on the stove. Once there was a steady flame going, she turned back around to face Starfire, who was again fiddling with whatever mixture she had in the pot.

She looked at the Tameranean girl, eyed her over. Starfire didn't have that many problems with her powers. None that Raven was aware of anyway. They didn't keep her from being happy, or sad…or for caring from someone. After all, the way her and Robin acted around each other was almost pathetically obvious; it seemed even Beast Boy had caught on to them. However, Raven noticed, they never actually seemed to give in to their feelings. Starfire constantly flirted with Robin, and Robin always acted tense around her, but they never actually seemed to want to admit it. They were constantly hiding and denying the way they felt whenever it was brought up.

'Perhaps' Raven thought, 'I might just be able to get some useful information from Starfire yet.'

"Starfire?" Raven said.

Starfire looked up. "Yes, friend?"

"Do you mind if I ask you something a bit personal?"

Starfire thought. "Well, I suppose not, if you need help with something." Starfire had known Raven for quite a while. She knew when Raven was befuddled about something. And she knew Raven was seeking some kind of advice from her.

"Yea," Raven mused. "I guess I need a little help."

"Oh glorious! I will gladly assist you in any way possible!" Starfire elated, rising from her previous position. "Tell me what troubles you."

"Well…I just…tell me something. What exactly is going on between you and Robin?"

Starfire's euphoric, ready-to-help visage immediately dissipated and was replaced with an averting, flushing face. "I…don't know what you're talking about, friend… The only thing between me and friend Robin is…these walls, and, of course, some amount of oxygen. Theoretically, there could be furniture too, as well as—" Starfire answered sheepishly.

"Perfect." Raven cut her off. "That's what I was counting on."

"What do you mean?" Starfire asked, puzzled.

"I mean, I need you to tell me how you go around all the time pretending you don't have feelings for Robin." Raven stated bluntly.

"I, well…I don't…" Starfire muttered, desperately trying to find a way out of the conversation she had been eager to join not ten seconds ago.

"And don't try to come up with any excuses. We both know you're crazy about him." Raven said, almost smiling at Starfire's situation. She really had come here to find a way out of her circumstances with Beast Boy, but she still couldn't help but find Starfire's predicament a bit humorous. As Raven continued to muse at the situation, Starfire merely continued to stutter little pieces of nonsense out of her mouth.

Raven became serious again and sighed. "Come on Starfire. This is important. I _need_ to know how you do it."

"Well… this seems like a very silly thing to ask somebody!" Starfire said somewhat defensively. She wasn't trying to be standoffish; she was just confused as to why someone would ask something so preposterous.

"Starfire—"

"I mean, why would you want to know such a thing? Nobody would—"

"Starfire—"

"—want to know that. I mean, conceivably the only reason someone would even ask that in the first place is if…" Starfire paused. She suddenly smiled and turned to Raven.

"What?" Raven demanded. "If what?"

"Oh Raven! You are in love! This is most wonderful!" Starfire shouted, immediately wrapping Raven in one of her trademark, killer hugs. "You can go on the dates to restaurants, and see movies together, and do all sorts of things!"

"Sterfir…I'm not…in loff" Raven tried to say whenever she could manage.

"We can go buy you new clothes, and jewelry, and…Eep! I almost forgot! Raven, who is it that you are in love with? Oh you must tell me!"

"Sterfir…I sid…I'm not…in loff—" Raven freed herself from Starfire's deathgrip. "—with Beast Boy!"

Upon saying this, all of the cabinets and drawers on the bottom row of the kitchen were enveloped in black light, and blusteringly thrust open with a quick, staccato PANG.

Starfire, who had been rambling on and on while Raven had been attempting to speak, only perceived the very last part of her sentence. Upon hearing it, she forgot all about Raven's raucous outburst, then squinted in confusion.

"You are in love with… friend Beast Boy?" she asked, infinitely perplexed. It wasn't that there was anything coherently wrong with that. Both Raven and Beast Boy were her tremendously close friends, and she wished the world for both of them. However, putting them together as a couple just didn't make much sense to her.

"NO!" Raven shouted. At this, every pot, pan, utensil, and otherwise available kitchen accessory in the bottom drawers promptly shot out of its resting place and collided with the floor. The metal pots and pans were especially loud, sounding out in long, boisterous clangs that seemed to continue resonating long after their initial impact. Luckily for the two girls, all of the plates, cups, and other glass materials were kept in the top cabinets and remained unharmed.

Starfire gasped. "Please, friend! You must calm down! I am…sorry to have angered you."

Raven gradually calmed down and regained her usual, static composure. Her breathing slowed down and she took a deep breath in and peacefully exhaled it. "You're right Starfire." She said. "I'm sorry."

"It is…okay." Starfire said timidly, not wanting to further upset Raven. "So…you are _not_ in love with Beast Boy?"

"I'm not in love with _anyone_, Starfire." Raven sighed. A slight cracking sound began in the background, but it was so slight the girls didn't notice it.

Starfire scowled at Raven's statement. She realized that she often didn't understand the customs of Earth, and was even considered naïve at times. However, she was no idiot. "Then why were you questioning me as to how to stop being in love with somebody? It seems quite an irrelevant thing to ask if you yourself are not in love, yes?"

Raven had no quick response ready. "Well…I…uh…" she choked. Starfire was right. Her logic, though sketchily expressed, was seemingly flawless. But no…she didn't care for Beast Boy. Not in the way Starfire was implying anyway. And what was that incessant cracking sound behind her?

"You see? You cannot argue. Because I am right. You. are. in. love." she blatantly stated. Starfire smiled. The tables had been turned. Now, she was doing the drilling, and Raven was the one being verbally backed into a corner.

"No. I. am. not." Raven said.

"Tell me with whom."

"Nobody."

Crack.

"I will not tell anyone else."

"There's _nobody_."

Crack.

"Just once? Please friend."

"Starfire there's **_nobody_**."

Crack.

Starfire sighed and slapped her hands on her hips in an annoyed manner. "Raven you are being quite difficult for no apparent reason. Tell me, how can you ask me how to deny the love you feel, when you then turn around and say you are not feeling it at all? How can you _not_ be in love when you ask that kind of question?"

"I'm just not, okay!" Raven shouted.

Crack.

"And what keeps making that noise!" she added.

"What noise?" Starfire questioned.

Raven sighed. "Never mind Starfire." She spoke, exasperated. "Look, I'm going to go…take a shower. I haven't had one yet."

"Alright. Pleasant…showering, friend." Starfire said as Raven headed toward the door (or lack thereof).

Starfire sat down in the nearest chair and sighed. It seemed Raven was keeping something from her; she just didn't know what. As she sat there, she replayed the conversation in her head. Raven had entered, set up her tea, asked Starfire how to completely eradicate feelings of undying love and affection. So on and so on. Starfire had hugged her, she had said something, then yelled about not being in love with Beast Boy and…wait…Beast Boy? Why did Raven mention Beast Boy? They hadn't even been discussing him. _She _certainly hadn't brought him up before that.

"Friend, wait!" Starfire called out to Raven as she rose out of her chair. "If you are not in love with Beast Boy, then why did you mention him before?"

Raven, who was almost to the hallway, flinched momentarily, almost unnoticeably at the sound of his name. However, taking less than a millisecond to recover, she continued to the hallway as if Starfire hadn't even spoken at all.

Starfire, thinking Raven simply hadn't heard her, sat down again defeatedly. Now that it was quiet, she finally heard the cracking sound Raven had referred to. She looked toward the source to find that Raven's teapot was surrounded in black energy that was slowly crushing it. Once Raven left the room and was out of sight, the teapot finally gave way and shattered. Glass shards jumped everywhere. Boiling hot water sizzled as it landed on the surface of the stove, leaving Starfire with one more mess to clean up in the now ruined kitchen.

* * *

_**Two hours later... **_

Cyborg shot his sonic cannon at one of the artificial laser shooters that had protruded from the ground. Beast Boy, in the form of a rhinoceros, simply stepped on them, smashing the small machines to pieces. Overall, the Titan's new obstacle course had not provided the two with too much of a challenge. The two teens had had a small problem in a previous area of the course where, Cyborg noted, Beast Boy had suddenly found it imperative to stare at something in Raven's direction. His momentary lack of focus resulted in a brief slip-up, though he and Cyborg quickly recovered due to the quick pace of the course, and it seemed no one else noticed what had happened.

The two teenagers crossed the finish line and slowed to a stop. Beast Boy resumed his human form, while Cyborg wiped some sweat from one side of his face.

"Whoo, now _that's_ a rush!" the metal man said in the midst of catching his breath. "What's our time Rob?"

"Five minutes, thirty seconds" replied Robin.

"Oh yeah! Five-thirty! Go us! It's our birthday!" Beast Boy shouted. He then looked suddenly puzzled. "Uhhh…Is that good?"

"Dunno" Robin said. "You guys are the first to do the course. I guess that _does_ put you're time at the top."

"Sweet! Oh yeah! Go—" Beast Boy began cheering.

"—By default" Robin said, interrupting Beast Boy session.

"Oh…" the changeling replied, his bravado vanishing.

"Coulda been better if you had an attention span above three seconds…" Cyborg muttered indistinctly.

"Oh? And what's _that_ supposed to mean?" Beast Boy responded agitatedly.

"It's _supposed_ to mean that maybe we coulda made a better time if you hadn't been starin' at Raven." Cyborg retaliated. Beast Boy flinched.

"I was not staring at her!" he protested, pointing a gloved hand at Raven. She and Starfire were walking over to the boys and were completely oblivious to what had been said before Beast Boy's outburst.

"Staring at who, friend Beast Boy?" Starfire asked casually.

"Nobody!" the changeling again shouted. Starfire cringed, half expecting something to explode at the sound of someone shouting 'nobody', however, nothing of the sort happened.

"So, who's up next?" asked Robin, completely uninterested in Beast Boy and Cyborg's typical bickering.

"Oh friend Raven, let us participate in the course of obstacles! It will be most fun!" Starfire shrieked in excitement. Judging by the…episode in the kitchen a few hours ago, Starfire figured Raven could use something to take her mind off of whatever was ailing her. This seemed like the best, instant solution she could come up with.

"Sure, whatever Starfire." Raven replied apathetically. She had no genuine interest in "playing" on the obstacle course, but she had long since given up arguing when Starfire wanted her to do something.

The two girls approached the beginning of the course and the ten-second countdown began. As Raven mentally prepared, she glanced over at the rest of the team. Robin was continuously making furtive glances at Starfire. He would look at something else in between these glances to make it appear as though he wasn't concentrated on her; his illusion was sadly failing though. Cyborg was apparently watching the countdown of the red number above them (which was now at 5). Beast Boy, as Raven noted, was conspicuously avoiding any and all eye contact. She didn't have to wonder why. His entire face was turned away from her and Starfire. He didn't look mad, just distant, as though he was thinking about something he wasn't actually seeing.

1…0!

A loud buzzing noise suddenly stole Raven away from her thoughts. She looked up at the countdown; it was now at zero and the overbearing buzzing sound was her signal to go. Forgetting her thoughts, Raven tore off to make up from her lack of concentration. Hopefully the others hadn't noticed…

Once Raven's mad dash to catch up with Starfire ended, the challenges of the course began. Small machines rose from the ground all around the two girls. They didn't appear that intimidating at first sight. However, they became much more daunting when multiple rounds of bomb-discs were propelled out of them.

Three of the exploding discs were headed straight for Starfire. Immediately, she readied her starbolts and thrust numerous green lights at the oncoming bombs. Each of them were struck by the attacks and obliterated upon impact. Starfire continued flying, and went forth into the debris before her. In a theatrical display, she shot out of the smoke like an airplane emerging from a cloud and continued to defend herself against the onslaught of bombs.

Meanwhile, Raven was also dealing with the discs coming her way. Using her powers, she managed to contain two or three that threatened to come her way. Occasionally, some got quite close to her, in which case she drew out a black shield in front of her with her hands. At one moment, she found herself surrounded by several exploding discs on all sides. Using quick calculation, she simply flew upward out of range, and the ambush of bombs collided with each other. Although the resulting "BOOM" was loud, it was a safe distance away and caused Raven no injury.

Soon, the two girls found themselves in the next section of the course. Giant steel towers of random height rose from the ground in attempt to stop the girls. They served almost no challenge at all though. Seeing as Raven and Starfire both had the ability to fly, they merely lifted off the ground and flew over the obstacles with ease.

Raven, believing she was out of danger for the moment, glanced over at the team as they eagerly watched her superhuman actions. She took note of Beast Boy, who, after his last run on the course, had become a bit sweaty. His face was moist and his hair was quite damp. The whole look made him seem, to say the least…hot. Her eyes moved downward to his torso. The recent exercise had caused his muscles to bulge out a bit, she noticed; his arms looked a bit larger, his chest appeared more defined. His entire physique was…

BAM!

With that, Raven crashed right into one of the metal towers that she had thought to be safely flying over. In a dazed concussion, she began spiraling to the ground.

"Raven!" Starfire shouted upon seeing Raven crash and begin plummeting to the ground. She immediately forgot the obstacle course and rushed to aid her falling friend. Just in the nick of time, she caught Raven and rushed her back over to the course controls where the boys had been watching. They too had begun running out to help.

Once she got to them, Starfire sat Raven down on the ground and began trying to assist her. The dark girl had apparently regained consciousness but was still clutching her throbbing head.

"Raven, are you alright!" Robin asked frantically as he approached the two girls.

"I'm fine" she replied, moving away from Starfire and attempting to stand up. Her head still ached, and her vision wasn't quite sitting still yet, but she hated showing any sign of weakness. Not to mention she was already embarrassed enough from smashing into a ten-foot wide metal column.

"Ya' sure? Maybe you outta sit down for a while" Cyborg asked.

"Yeah, you took a pretty hard hit." Beast Boy said delicately.

"I said I'm _fine_." She repeated as she scowled at the changeling. He_ was_ the one that had broken her concentration after all. Beast Boy merely backed away from her, not wanting to be the cause of any more tension between Raven and himself.

"Well…anyone else wanna give the course a go?" Robin asked sheepishly. At this, Starfire's face lit up like there were fireworks in the air.

"Oh Robin, let us try it next! It is most exhilarating!" she shouted. Seeming to forget about what had been going on, Starfire darted up and grabbed the unsuspecting Robin's hand before he even had a chance to respond. His cheeks turned a light shade of crimson for a moment, but before he knew it, Starfire had gotten them to the start of the course. The countdown began, and Robin was forced to push down any thoughts about Starfire and concentrate on the task before him.

The number finally reached zero and there was a buzzing sound signaling the start of the course. The two were off! They made their way through the bomb section, pummeled around (or over) the metal pillars, and exquisitely dodged the laser shooters. All in all, they had done fairly well, and had even gotten a time of 4: 57. Beast Boy scoffed at the fact that they had badly beaten his and Cyborg's time, but tried not to act too envious.

Robin and Cyborg decided to try the obstacle course next. They came out of it with a time not much worse than the previous, around 5: 02. Again, Beast Boy was miffed that his and Cyborg's time had been beaten, but tried not to look too much into it. Robin and Cyborg got off the course and walked back over to the rest of the team.

"Well, anyone want to go next?" Robin asked tiredly, still a bit out of breath from his run. There weren't any volunteers.

"No one? …How 'bout you Beast Boy? You haven't gone in a while." He said, turning his attention to the changeling.

"Come on. Give it a go BB." Cyborg interjected. "You may not be able to beat me n' Rob's time, but you couldn't _possibly_ do any worse than your first run." Beast Boy glared.

"Fine, maybe I will." He said defiantly, rising to the chance to make Cyborg eat his words. "Uh, who wants to come with?"

Again, there were no volunteers.

"How about…" Robin said thoughtfully, looking around. "Raven. Think you might be in good enough condition to go?"

"Mm, fine, whatever." Raven replied apathetically. She started over toward the beginning of the course, Beast Boy following close (but not too close) behind. In reality, she desperately wanted to give the course at least one more run before practice was over, just to prove that she actually was capable of doing so without nearly killing herself.

The buzz sounded and the two went off. They made their way through the bomb section with relative ease. Both got through the pillar section without getting injured at all. Finally, they made their way through the field of laser guns and crossed the finish line. It seemed their various motivations had not been wasted. Once they made it back to the rest of the team, Robin told them that their time had been an extraordinary 3: 44!

"Dude, sweet! That's like the best time yet, right?" Beast Boy boasted avidly.

"Yea, it is." Robin said, still a bit surprised at their success. "Maybe you two should do stuff together more often. You work _great_ together."

"No we DON'T!" Raven suddenly burst out. Every rock, stone, and other piece of debris within a 30-foot radius immediately exploded in a rush of black light. There was a complete hush from the rest of the team. Raven knew Robin really hadn't meant it to mean that she and Beast Boy worked well as a couple, but the possible double meaning of his words simply struck her by surprise.

After a few moments of awkward silence, everyone's communicators went off, breaking the stillness. Robin flipped his opened and read the information.

"It's the Hive and Cinderblock. They've broken out of jail." He said sternly. "But this time, they've got Plasmus with them."

"Aww, come on!" Beast Boy groaned. "_Right_ after practice! Couldn't they have at least waited til' we, you know, shower or something?"

"Nope. Come one green man, we gotta go kick their sorry butts now" sighed Cyborg, pressing Beast Boy toward the car.

"Man this whomps." Beast Boy said angrily, folding his arms and huffing toward the T-Car with the rest of the team.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Okay, so again, sorry about the wait. However, I think that this fic is now officially over 20,000 words! Woot! 

By the way, I read somewhere that this month (November if you're reading a long time from now) is BB/Rae spirit month or something. Can an informed person clarify this in a review or something. Thanks. If you don't know however, please don't hesistate to review anyway :-).

Til' next time. GoldenBlade416


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

**Author's Note**: Okay well, this time, I've got ALL of the chapter up, promise. As always, I'm sorry it took so long. I intended to have this up on the 24th as an early Christmas present, but that didn't work out. However, you'll be happy to know that this is _the_ longest chapter yet. Not only did I break the 5,000 words mark, but I even went over 6,000. Most of you are probably sitting there thinking "Yeah it better be long". Well trust me, it is.

I might have said this before (my memory sucks), but thank you guys for giving me over 100 reviews! You all rock! Thanks! And while I'm talking about reviews, I just want to say that if you reviewed this chapter before I added the finishing part, then you don't have to submit another review if you don't feel like it. Well, to be honest, you're not required to submit a review at all. You get the point though.

For those of you that read this chapter before I added the next part to it, I've added a big marker rightat the point where the new material starts so you don't have to read through something you've already read. For those of you who are just now getting to this chapter, just ignore the big break a third down the page.

Now, onward to the FULL chapter 7.

* * *

Chapter 7

The T-car dashed around a corner and sped through the street in search of the five escaped criminals. The Titans had used the map function in their communicators to find the general area, and simply used logic to find the exact location of the villains. Everywhere, people were frantically screaming and running away. The teens simply went in the opposite direction of the civilians until they were able to find the towering figures of Plasmus and Cinderblock.

"But Robin, there are five of the villains this time." Starfire reminded him. "If their numbers are the same as ours, what are we to do?"

"I don't know" replied Robin. "We're just gonna have to fight them one on one until one of us can help. It may not be a good strategy, but it's the only option we've got."

"I think I see 'em." Cyborg exclaimed, acknowledging the direction of the villains.

"Okay team, it's just like I said." Robin began as final instructions before the battle started. "Each of us will have to fight one on one with one of them until we can help one another. When we get there, everyone just pick a criminal and go."

The T-car quickly skidded to a halt and the five teenagers inside it hastily rushed out. "Titans, GO!" Robin shouted as they ran off to combat the villains. Cyborg hurried in and began attacking Mammoth. Starfire dashed into Jinx and began attacking the witch with a barrage of her starbolts. Robin rushed in to fight Gizmo after nearly being struck by one of the boy's explosives. Raven flew up off the ground and began striking Cinderblock with her powers.

"Great, I get the giant, gross one." Beast Boy sighed as he went off to face Plasmus.

Cyborg and Mammoth were currently locked up in a power struggle. Both had their arms and fists up against each others, and neither would allow the other's strength to outlast their own. In a brief moment of balance-shifting, Cyborg managed to break the standoff and toss both his and Mammoth's hands away from each other. Without hesitation, both the large teenagers began attacking the other with a flurry of punches. Cyborg threw his fist at Mammoth; Mammoth moved his head aside and retaliated. Cyborg dodged too and threw another punch at Mammoth. This time though, the colossal criminal broke the cycle and caught Cyborg's fist in his hand.

Again, the two found themselves in a conflict of force, neither willing to relent. It seemed their strengths were equally matched; however, Cyborg had something Mammoth didn't. Within a second, Cyborg turned his fist into his sonic canon blaster. Mammoth didn't even have time to react before being knocked down the street by a full force blast of sound and energy.

Meanwhile, Starfire was attempting to defeat Jinx. Starfire tore through the air around the witch, sending large amounts of starbolts at her whenever given the chance. However, it seemed Jinx's skills weren't limited to ill-behaved magic; she also possessed a profuse amount of speed and flexibility, allowing her to dodge Starfire's attacks with infuriating ease.

Starfire continued her strategy, hoping to eventually get lucky and strike Jinx when she wasn't concentrating. However, as Jinx continued to evade the Tameranean's attacks, Starfire found her own energy draining from attacking so much. She glided away from the witch and turned to face her. Breathing heavily from fatigue, Starfire simply glared at the girl, hoping her staring contest would bide enough time for her to catch her breath. Jinx however, wasn't daunted by the menacing look on Starfire's face. She knew the girl was tired, and took the opportunity to attack. In a maliciously astounding display of power, Jinx sent a wave of dark magic out from her, damaging everything in front of her. Starfire tried to dart out of the attack's way, but couldn't escape its ever-growing radius. The hex rammed into the girl dead on, sending her plummeting into the asphalt yards away.

Dust and debris shot into the air and clouded the area where Starfire had hit the ground. Jinx waited to see if her enemy would rise or not, but remained weary. She was right to be expectant, because just moments later, Starfire burst from the impact site with newfound fury. Starbolts, ready, she shot toward Jinx and ran her burning fists straight into the girl's abdomen. Jinx was knocked into the adjacent building with a loud _crack_! Again, rubble shot up all around her once she collided with the surface, concealing her from view. Starfire, like Jinx seconds before, waited to see if another attack would come her way. When it finally began to seem the witch wouldn't rise again, she darted out of her previous location, readied with a fist with Starfire's name on it…

Just down the street, Robin had taken out a few of his bird-o-rangs and was preparing to hurl them at Gizmo. Seeing the attack coming, the ingenious villain prepared by activating his defense pack. Large metal spider legs spurt from the metal box on Gizmo's back and boosted him up a few feet from the ground. Robin flung his weapons the criminal, hoping to defeat him before he had the opportunity to cause any damage. However, now that Gizmo's movement system was activated, he was much more mobile and dodged the projectiles with great ease.

Now going on the offensive, Gizmo briefly took a crouching position. In one swift movement, he used his spider-like appendages to propel himself high into the air. Robin knew exactly what the young villain was up to, and immediately turned his gaze toward the sky in an attempt to foresee Gizmo's location and dodge him. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the afternoon, and the midday sun blinded Robin's vision and concealed Gizmo's position. All of a sudden, a dark form faintly appeared in the sun; it appeared to be coming down toward the earth. Before Robin had time to react, Gizmo, with all of his equipment had tackled him and knocked the boy wonder to the ground.

Robin attempted to stand up, but before he had the opportunity, a giant metal leg swiftly descended upon him. With exceptionally impressive reflexes Robin rolled out of the way just before being struck. Another leg came down upon him in a second attack; again, he managed to elude its damage. Gizmo continued attacking in this manner, and Robin continued dodging, until unexpectedly, one of the great spider-like legs contacted with another metal surface. Robin had his bo-staff raised just above his head and had used it to stop Gizmo's barrage of assaults. Using a large amount of arm strength, the boy wonder raised his staff and shoved Gizmo off of him. Quickly rising, Robin flung his staff at the criminal with a vast amount of force. Gizmo dodged, and then swung back again to avoid a second swing from the metal rod.

They continued this 'dance' until Gizmo concocted an idea. He took out a small device and, on Robin's next swing, attached it to the staff. Immediately, electricity shot down the rod, shocking the unsuspecting teen on the other end. Robin fell to the ground, momentarily paralyzed. He was completely helpless to defend himself as Gizmo raised his menacing limbs to attack…

Down the street a bit, and up in the air a few stories, Raven was flying in circles around Cinderblock. He was attempting to swat her away with his oversized stone hands, but was unfortunately much slower than she was (as well as unintelligent). Whenever Raven found the chance, she would blast a large beam of her powers at him, but was left aggravated every time. Though her blows always seemed to bother him, they never appeared to cause as much damage as they normally did. Raven resolved that if she wanted to end this battle _today_, she would have to use attacks of a larger scale.

Building up her powers, Raven rose high into the air, far out of Cinderblock's reach. He made an attempt to grab and pull her down by her feet, but was again too slow to catch her. Once at a safe altitude, Raven took on her meditating position and focused her concentration entirely on the task at hand.

"Azarath. Metrion. _Zinthos_!" she spoke, shouting the last word. Two great beams of dark energy ruptured from her hands and went soaring outward. The beams majestically curved downward and plummeted toward the unsuspecting criminal below. Before they struck however, the two beams slowed down a bit and began breaking apart. By the time they reached Cinderblock, they were merely a cluster of small, weak bolts of magic, fraying out in all directions. A few of the bolts struck Cinderblock, pushing him over a bit. Most of the others darted away into the surrounding space and ran on until dissipating. Some however, turned straight upward and quickly made their way toward Raven.

"What?" Raven called out in confusion, right before her own powers struck her out of the sky.

Before she could recover, Raven found herself impacting the dense, unforgiving street. She skidded for a bit, then just lay in her spot for a moment, resting. That had _hurt_! Her entire body now ached with newfound pain. She would have bruises for weeks just from that!

Just then the ground shook, reminding Raven that she still had a job to do. She looked up to see Cinderblock, still relatively undamaged, making his way toward her. Her physical pain was suddenly replaced by anger; she had just used one of her most powerful attacks on this guy, and for some reason, it wound up damaging her more than it did him! She decided to end this once and for all.

"_Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!_" She shouted her mantra again. This time, her eyes glowed white, and her entire body was enveloped in black energy. The energy broke away from her and manifested itself into the form of an oversized raven behind her. Once the giant incarnation had fully materialized, it darted away from the fallen girl and made its way toward Cinderblock. Within a second, the great bird was upon the villain. Cinderblock never had time to react; the attack plowed right into him. With one last bellow, the massive rock-man fell down into the surrounding asphalt and shook the area.

For a moment, Raven watched Cinderblock's struck-down figure with bated breath. When, after a minute or so, he still didn't stir, Raven conceded that he was officially down and out. She looked around to see where she could provide aid. Her eyes first set on the towering shape of Plasmus, who happened to be locked in combat with Beast Boy…

The changeling, in the form of a pterodactyl, was flying around his enemy trying not to be dissolved by the streams of acid erupting his mouth. So far, the only offensive plan Beast Boy had come up with was to graze Plasmus's gelatinous body with the tips of his wings. Though these attacks served to cause a bit of pain, as well as momentary inconvenience, they never resulted in lasting damage. As time went on, Beast Boy became increasingly aware of this and decided that he needed a new strategy, and quick.

The green pterodactyl swooped down to the ground, resuming the human form of Beast Boy once it landed. The comparatively small teen glanced up at the Plasmus's gargantuan body. Beast Boy concluded that it would _not_ be advisable to remain his current size. Taking on the form of a large rhinoceros, he let out a roar and charged at one of Plasmus's lower legs. By putting in a great amount of force, Beast Boy managed to obliterate what part of the creature's leg he could reach. Red goop splattered everywhere, and Plasmus began to lose his balance. However, he managed to remain standing by using the nearby buildings as a temporary support system.

Beast Boy began to charge at Plasmus's other leg, hoping that by doing so, he would put the criminal at a great disadvantage. To his dismay though, before he even began moving again, the scattered clumps of slime started reassembling themselves. Within seconds Plasmus's leg had completely reassembled itself. Beast Boy grunted, realizing that his idea wouldn't work as long as Plasmus could rebuild himself. He had another plan, but it could be risky if not executed properly, not to mention gross.

Morphing into a pterodactyl again, Beast Boy took to the sky. He quickly made his way behind Plasmus so as not to be seen. Then, he glided away from Plasmus at a distance that he judged would be appropriate. His plan was this: fly straight at Plasmus's midsection, hopefully gaining enough speed to go straight through and knock out the small man within, thus ending the battle.

Turning around, Beast Boy flew straight at the unsuspecting Plasmus, who fortunately still had his back turned. As he continued gliding, he gained more and more speed. It looked as though his plan might just work. All of a sudden though, Plasmus became aware of the changeling's impending presence. He screeched and let out a long jet of thick acidic fluid. The suddenly surprised Beast Boy had no time to react. The fluid came straight into contact with his left wing. He slowed down dramatically and his flight pattern was significantly altered. He plunged into the horrible beast, but because of his decreased speed, did not have enough momentum to get back out again.

"Beast Boy?" Raven murmured, having witnessed most of the battle up to this point.

Stuck inside Plasmus's sticky body, unable to move or breathe, Beast Boy began flailing about rapidly in an attempt to escape. His efforts proved futile however; his enemy's body would not relent. Becoming pressed for oxygen, the frantic teen began changing into random shapes. An elephant, a walrus, a lion…none of them helped him. As his lungs strained for air and his consciousness finally began to leave him, his flailing slowed, as did his shape shifting. It seemed there would be no getting out.

"Get out" Raven said to herself hopefully. "Come on. Get out of there!" Settling that Beast Boy really was stuck, Raven began hurrying over to the towering Plasmus to help.

Beast Boy, in his final moments, attempted one last method of getting out. If it didn't work, it would be up to someone else to get him out of this mess. Right before passing out, the changeling shifted into the form of an electric eel. Apparently, the usually dense teen knew at lease _something_ about science, because his plan worked out admirably. The electric current spread from his body into Plasmus's like a wildfire. The gel around him was instantly repelled away by the electric current and Beast Boy's dazed, nearly unconscious body was flung out into the air again. Plasmus went reeling as his pained body fell to the ground in a paralyzed state. Beast Boy, in his disoriented state, mechanically resumed human form as he plummeted toward the solid ground.

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Raven, who had finally arrived, immediately took to the air to catch the fallen changeling before he could hit the tough, unrelenting surface of the street. Just in time, she caught his falling body, and gently lowered it to safety. He was conscious, but just barely. His breathing was very light, almost inaudible, and a good portion of his body was covered in red slime.

"Beast Boy!" Raven shouted, shaking his body lightly.

"R…Ra…" Beast tried to utter before coughing up a mess of red slime. Raven concluded that he must have inhaled part of Plasmus while being stuck inside him. Using her empathic abilities, she mentally felt around in Beast Boy's body. There was a foreign liquid in his lungs, and a lot of it, explaining why he was having difficulty breathing. Placing her hands on the boy's torso, she prepared to help him.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" Raven uttered softly. With that, black sparks engulfed Beast Boy's midsection. In one swift movement, they shot up from there, past his lungs and throat, where they dissipated. Immediately, Beast Boy shot up from the ground and began retching masses of crimson goo. After a moment, he ceased vomiting and was merely coughing. Raven took this as a good sign, because if he could cough, that meant that his airways were, for the most part, cleared. When Beast Boy had finished convulsing, he opened his eyes and turned toward Raven. His vision was a bit blurry, but he could tell that it was her.

"Rae?" Beast Boy spoke, a bit out of breath. He gently shook his head to settle his eyesight. When he looked up, his eyes locked with Raven's and he noticed an unfamiliar look on her face. She looked concerned, and even more noticeably, scared. "What…what are you doing?"

"I was…healing you," she spoke with unintended tenderness.

"Yeah but, your hands…" he said, looking down. Raven followed the direction of his eyes. Indeed, her hands were exactly where she had placed them in order to heal him, gingerly wrapped around the changeling's stomach.

"Oh! Sorry!" she said suddenly, pulling her hands away from Beast Boy's abdomen. "I didn't mean…"

"It's okay." He said calmly. His voice sounded significantly less exasperated, as though he was regaining his energy. Slowly, he maneuvered his lower body around to face Raven. She was no longer touching him, but they were still quite close. "Uh, thanks…for healing me, I mean." Beast Boy held his hand out to her.

'_Oh great, BB. That's not awkward _at all' Beast Boy thought to himself once he did so. To his surprise though, Raven put her hand in his and shook it, seemingly ignoring the lack of grace of the gesture.

"Heh, yeah…" Beast Boy laughed embarrassedly as he removed his hand.

"Wait! Your hand, it's—"

"Yea, heh, sorry, I know that was kinda dumb"

"No, I mean, it's clean. There's no slime on it, or anywhere."

"Oh. Dude, you're right! Where'd it all go?"

"I don't know…" Raven trailed off. Suddenly, there was a screeching roar and a loud rumbling sound throughout the air. The two sounds seemed to be coming from different sources and their mix made it hard to decipher what or where they were. However, the two teen heroes didn't have to look long. Both broke the gaze they had been holding with one another and looked up. Behind Beast Boy, Raven saw, Plasmus was reassembling himself and rising. Likewise, Beast Boy saw that Cinderblock too had risen as was running at them behind Raven.

"Lookout" they shouted simultaneously, both pointing at the villains they could see. They both darted up and ran in opposite directions. Raven readied her powers and flew at Plasmus. Beast Boy, essentially healed, morphed into a falcon and sped away to attack Cinderblock.

While all this was happening, Robin was still regaining his state of mind. Gizmo's previous electric attack had left him dazed and paralyzed. His vision was blurry, and the only thing he was really aware of was the fact that he was on the ground. He groaned and shook his head, trying to regain what he could of his vision. After doing so, he became vaguely aware of a figure looming over him. Though he was unable to completely make out what exact details of the figure, it was enough for him to realize that he was about to be impaled by Gizmo. At the very last second, Robin did what he could to swiftly roll his body over and out of the way. Gizmo's sharp limbs came down, but missed Robin and slammed straight through the asphalt.

Gizmo tried to pry the suit's appendages from the ground, but couldn't. Also unfortunately for the villain, Robin had now fully regained consciousness and was more than capable of attacking. From his utility belt, Robin prepared a set of bird-o-rangs. After taking careful aim, he thrust them at his stuck adversary, slicing right through the protrusions of Gizmo's suit. No longer attached to the supporting appendages, Gizmo fell to the ground, almost completely disarmed. With no useful weapons left, the boy was left with only one option: run. Gizmo didn't get very far though before Robin had pulled out his grappling hook and shot it at him. The rope shot out, and before Gizmo knew it, his body was wrapped up in rope, and he _wasn't_ getting out.

Meanwhile, Cyborg was close to defeating Mammoth. He had already knocked the giant man down the street with his sonic cannon, and intended to knock him out quickly before much more time passed. Cyborg ran up to the stunned villain and, before he had time to stand up from the previous attack, punched him square in the face. Cyborg attempted to punch him again, but had his fist blocked by Mammoth's hands. Using the power struggle their hands were in as a distraction, Mammoth reached his foot up and forcefully kicked Cyborg away. Cyborg landed on the ground a few yards away. Once he got up, he was met by a punch from Mammoth. Luckily, it was the metal side of his face, but it still angered him.

"All right, that's it! I didn't wanna do this, but now you've pissed me off!" Cyborg shouted, charging his sonic cannon again.

"You already shot me with that thing. It didn't work." Mammoth taunted.

"It will this time!" replied Cyborg. Satisfied with the weapon's power level, Cyborg shot it right above Mammoth.

"You missed me" Mammoth laughed.

"Yea well, I wasn't aimin' for ya." Cyborg taunted back, a smirk building on his face. With that, the large sign on the building behind them came crashing down. It landed right on Mammoth, squashing him into the ground.

"Ya don't mess with the king baby! Yeah!" Cyborg cheered as he walked away from the hopelessly knocked out villain.

Down the street a bit, Starfire was laying on the ground after being struck by Jinx. The witch, having the upper hand for the moment, raised her hands and sent a wave of hexes at Starfire's fallen form. Starfire let out a scream as the attack knocked her further down the street. Rather than staying down though, the Tameranean girl rose and quickly flew into Jinx, tackling her to the ground. Jinx grabbed Starfire's arms and flipped her over so she was being pressed into the ground. Starfire struggled a bit, then prepared her starbolts and blasted Jinx off of her.

The witch was flung nearly a block away and crashed into forcefully into the ground. Before she even had a chance to get up, Starfire was above her, flinging starbolt after starbolt at the villain. She never stood a chance. When Starfire ceased attacking and the debris cleared out, Jinx was officially out.

With that, the only villains left to defeat were Cinderblock and Plasmus. Raven was able to combat Plasmus much more efficiently than Beast Boy given her powers and the fact that they didn't require her to touch her enemy. She conjured a shield in front of her to block a spew of acid from Plasmus's mouth. Once the stream of liquid ended, she compacted the shield into a projectile of sorts and flung it at Plasmus. It went straight through his head. Like most other attacks aimed at the monster though, it was more of annoying than effective. His body was completely reformed within a second.

Deciding that the only way to defeat Plasmus would be to knock out the human at his core, Raven prepared to unleash her soul self. Dark material appeared all around her body, then shot out toward Plasmus. On its way, the dark energy materialized into a shape similar to that of Raven's body. Raven's soul self connected with Plasmus's body and drove into it. When it came out, it was carrying a small, sleeping human. When it laid the young man down on the ground, Plasmus withered and shrunk until he was completely disappeared.

All the while, Beast Boy was taking down Cinderblock. He was doing considerably well considering the condition he had been in just moments before. In the form of a pterodactyl, he was darting through the air around the giant villain, attempting to confuse him. Once Beast Boy had sufficiently perplexed Cinderblock, he flew high up into the air. At an adequate altitude, he ceased flying and took on the form of a whale. Immediately, his now large body began plummeting toward the ground. As Cinderblock noticed the increasingly large shadow appearing around him, he looked up, only to be crushed into the ground by a large, green whale.

Beast Boy resumed his human form and surveyed Cinderblock's unconscious body. Concluding that he was indeed out cold, Beast Boy ran off to find the others. From the relative silence in the area, it appeared that all the other villains had been defeated, including Plasmus. He turned the corner and found Cyborg doing the same thing he was.

"Hey Cy! Where is everyone?" Beast Boy called out as he approached Cyborg. The metal man turned around.

"Oh, hey BB. I dunno. I've been tryin' to find one of y'all. You found anyone yet?"

"Nah. Just you." The changeling replied. "Robin and Star are probably off makin' out somewhere. Heh."

"Haha! Wouldn't surprise me." Cyborg laughed. He then cringed and covered his nose. "Man did you use _any _deodorant today?...or this week?" Beast Boy scowled.

"Dude! It's not my fault Plasmus smells like ass!" he protested.

"Ah, say no more." Cyborg conceded, immediately understanding at the mention of Plasmus. "Let's go find the lovebirds, and hope that when we run into 'em it'll be PG rated."

"Wait, is that them down there?" Beast Boy asked as he pointed to two people down the street. One looked like a tall girl with fiery red hair, and the other looked like a boy who had been on fire.

"Maybe." Cyborg replied. "Could just be the civilians comin' back. Let's go check it out." The two boys ran down the street to the other two people. Sure enough, it was Robin and Starfire.

"Dude, what happened to you?" Beast Boy asked Robin. His clothing looked charred and his hair was standing on end as though full of static. "You look like you tried to go swimming with a toaster."

"Gizmo." Robin sighed. He took a sniff of the surrounding air and winced. "What happened to _you_?"

"Plasmus." Beast Boy sighed. Nobody further questioned the matter. "So where's Rae?"

"Hm. My scanners say she's three blocks and a left turn after that corner." Cyborg replied. "Let's go get her."

Down the street and left of the bank, Raven was in her meditative position waiting for her soul self to return from Plasmus and back to her body. However, there seemed to be some problem (as was apparently the norm lately). Her soul self didn't seem to be responding to her control; it simply wouldn't budge. This served a great problem. A great part of her consciousness was contained in her soul self. Therefore, she didn't have sufficient control over her body to move the two back together. And because of whatever problem was occurring now, she couldn't move her soul self back to her body either. If she was unable to gain control over either part of herself, she would either have to wait for one of her friends (who would be clueless as to what to do) or stay separated this way forever.

All of a sudden, Raven's soul self dissipated and shot back toward her body. She reabsorbed the entity and gently floated to the ground. When she fully regained consciousness though, she found that she had a splitting headache. It felt as if a piece of her mind had been ripped out. When she looked over at Plasmus's human body, she noticed another entity walking toward her. It was a translucent silhouette of herself that was emanating a sort of purple-violet glow. The silhouette approached her and held her hand up to the light, evaluating its reality. Putting its hand down, the silhouette then stretched her arms out, as though it had been cooped up for quite a while and was glad to finally be free.

"What…what are you?" Raven questioned. The entity before her didn't answer. It merely turned its head a bit and stared intently at something behind her. Soon after, unbeknownst to Raven, Beast Boy came from around the corner behind her, followed by the others. The silhouette began smiling, almost beaming. Noticing the changed emotion on its face, Raven turned around to see what had brought it about. All she could see though was the other Titans, Beast Boy at the front. She turned back around to question the entity as to why it was smiling at them, but then found that it was gone. Dually noted, so was her headache.

"Friend Raven! What is it that you are staring at?" Starfire called to her. Raven shook her head and turned around, deciding to add the previous occurrence to her growing 'things-to-figure-out list'.

"N-nothing. Can we go?"

"Yep." Cyborg replied. "The T-car's just over that way."

* * *

The Titans were in the T-car, driving back to the tower. Cyborg was driving, with Robin in the passenger's seat. In the back, Starfire was seated in the middle, with Beast Boy to the left and Raven to the right. Starfire was constantly chatting with Robin, while Beast Boy was being mysteriously quiet. Raven, silent as usual, was gazing out the window, lost in thought. Her powers had been screwing up all day and she was getting extremely tired of it. Not only could it indicate a serious problem within her mind, but if left uncorrected, it could hurt people. And now, she had the added problem of the entity that had been left behind when her soul self dissipated. Plus Beast Boy… 

Raven was snapped out of her thoughts when the car jerked to a stop at a red light. Already looking out the window, she noticed that the streets were already packed with people again; it never took long for people to come back out once the villains were defeated. On the sidewalk next to them, Raven noticed a couple sitting on a bench. The young man had dark blonde hair and well-tanned skin. The girl he had his arm around had nearly black hair and much fairer skin.

As Raven watched them, she couldn't help but feel a bit jealous. She had never really pictured herself as one to have a boyfriend, but ever since she experienced the feeling first hand with Malchior, she decided that it wouldn't be that bad. It wasn't exactly her first priority, but as long as she managed to keep her powers under control (and make sure he wasn't really a dragon), she could at least give it a try. However, with her constant job as a superhero, she never really had time to meet anybody. It wasn't like she was Starfire, with a potential boyfriend sleeping under the same roof as her. At the current rate, the only guys she would have a chance with were Cyborg and…. She wouldn't even entertain the thought.

The light turned green and the T-car continued its journey home. As Raven spared one last glance at the couple on the sidewalk, she, for some reason, imagined small fangs protruding from the lips of the smiling young man as he held his girlfriend in his arms…

* * *

The doors to the Titans' common room opened and the five teenagers entered. 

"Okay, I get dibs on the shower, and _nobody_ is saying otherwise" Beast Boy protested. Nobody argued. It had become an unofficial agreement in the tower that whoever dealt with Plasmus was automatically allowed first shower. Plus, everyone had just had to ride all the way home in a car with Beast Boy, and had no desire whatsoever to smell him anymore.

Robin, Starfire, and Cyborg exited to the hallway to go to their respective bedrooms. Beast Boy followed in order to retrieve a change of clothes. Raven however, chose to stay in the kitchen. She had left one of her books lying on the counter and decided to catch up on some of her reading while making some tea.

* * *

**_Twenty minutes later..._**

Raven poured her now finished tea into a cup and took a sip of it. She sighed in relief at its subtle taste and warmth. Placing it back on the counter, she picked up her book and resumed reading where she had left off.

After a few moments of blissful silence, the doors from the hallway opened and Beast Boy, smelling clean and with still dampened hair, exited. He had changed into a fresh uniform and felt completely cleansed of all filth. Raven however, sighed inwardly, knowing that with him in the room her chances for further silence were now slim to none.

"Oh, you're here." Beast Boy startled upon entering the kitchen.

"Yep" Raven replied, not even looking up from her book. "So, are you…okay?" she asked, not wanting to be completely rude.

"Huh? Oh, yeah…fine. Good as ever." Beast Boy answered awkwardly.

"Great." She said, returning to her reading. To her dismay, Beast Boy didn't move from his current spot. "Did you want something?"

"What? Oh! Yeah. I just came to get a…uh, sandwich. Gotta eat, ya' know."

"Uh-huh."

Beast Boy took out the bread from one of the cabinets and placed it on the counter. He took out two pieces and put it away. After retrieving the peanut butter and jelly, all he needed was the silverware, which happened to be in the drawer behind Raven.

"Uh, hey, Raven? I kinda need a uh…knife." He said, walking over the Raven. She wordlessly conceded and scooted over toward the sink. Beast Boy opened the door, only to find that there were no knives left.

"Crap!" he said.

"What?" Raven asked.

"There's no more knives." He replied.

"Oh." Raven said, uninterested. Beast Boy leaned across her to check the clean side of the sink for a knife. In his haste to get his hands on some silverware, he was completely unaware of how close he was to Raven, as well as the fact that he practically had his arms wrapped around her; one was hanging on to the counter by his bread, and the other was on the her other side, in the sink. Raven scowled at how he was crowding her and moved her book out to a position away from him.

Finally, Beast Boy found a clean knife and took it from the sink. He leaned back over and moved to go back to the plate where his sandwich-to-be was located. On his way back though, he bumped his head into Raven's book, knocking it out of her hands. This caused him to drop his knife as well. The two objects struck the floor in a loud, staccato 'bang' and a resonating 'ding'.

"Beast Boy!" Raven protested.

"Sorry! Sorry!" He said. He picked her book up. "Here." She accepted it, but was still annoyed that her reading had been interrupted. To make sure it wouldn't be knocked away from her again, she grasped the book in both hands and held it out away from her at a distance where she could still read it, but Beast Boy wouldn't bump into it.

Beast Boy bent over again to pick up his knife. Once he got it, he rose again and found himself in between Raven and her book, surrounded by her arms.

"Oh…" he said, taken entirely off guard by their positions.

For minutes, neither of them dared to move. They simply stood there, staring at one another. At one point, they simply lost themselves in each other's eyes. Again, Raven found herself overcome by that inexplicable desire to be as close to him as possible. Every one of her other senses was completely overridden, as she pulled closer to him. He moved his face towards hers too, tilting his head a bit.

Their faces met. She moved her lips against his own. He placed her hands in her hair. Neither of them had any idea why they were doing what they were, or why they wanted to so badly. All they knew was that it felt _good_.

In the heat of moment, Raven wrapped her hands around his neck, completely forgetting about her book. For the second time, it struck the floor, resulting in a quick, resounding pop.

Instantly, the two were brought back to reality. They flung their arms off of each other and pulled away, gasping for breath. For whatever reason, something finally clicked inside Raven's mind. All the puzzle pieces put themselves together. The mystery emotion she was suppressing, the strange emotion in the purple robe, her powers, the purple, glowing entity from her soul self and that _feeling_ she always seemed to get whenever she was close to Beast Boy.

Everything that Knowledge had said to her made sense. Raven had finally figured it out. And she was _mad_. She was going to have a talk to end all talks with her emotions. She stormed off toward the hallway leading to her room, leaving her book on the ground beside Beast Boy. She was extremely frustrated with her emotions, so she didn't notice that as she left, an onslaught of black sparks and destruction was left in her wake…

* * *

**Author's Note**: Well, I think I basically covered everything I needed to say in the AN at the top. Merry Christmas, sorry it took a while, thanks for the reviews, and CYA. 

'Til next time. GoldenBlade416


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

**Author's Note**:

**_VERY IMPORTANT!  
IF YOU HAVE BEEN READING THIS STORY FROM THE FIRST TIME IT WAS POSTED, GO BACK AND READ CHAPTER 7. IT HAS BEEN UPDATED!  
_**

Okay, sorry about the all caps, underlined, italized, _and_ bolded text, but I just want to make sure everyone knows this. If you have been keeping up with this story, then you need to go back and read chapter 7, because since its posting, the other half has been added. When you read it, there is a large, unmissable section breaker between the new section and the old section. Inside it, please ignore the fact that the date says it was put there in October. It should be December, but I was out of it,...or something...oops...

Anyway, now on to the real AN. In this chapter, Raven's emotion Wisdom may at times come of as...well, bitchy. It was, for the most part, unintentional. I realize that it it out of character for her, but whenever she does seem to be really mean, I was just trying to illustrate her frustration with Raven. Other than that though, I tried to make her other lines as kind-sounding as possible.

Anyway, here's what you actually came here for, the story.

* * *

Chapter 8

In the vast expanses of Raven's mind, all was going fairly normal. Her various emotions were going about their usual businesses. Wisdom was meditating, Timid was hiding. Happy and Brave had even begun an extreme variation of the game 'tag'. They were playing it out, boisterously running about, occasionally disrupting Crass's nap.

Without warning, the space and time in the dimension were torn apart, resulting in a small, human-sized portal opening up. Out of it stepped Raven, an infuriated Raven. As she left it, the portal closed, almost zipper-like as it sealed itself. The irate girl crossed the nearly flat, rocky plains of her mind, the ground crunching beneath her raging feet.

Raven saw a few of her emotions in the distance, though she didn't bother trying to make any distinction between them; she was only interested in finding one. To her displeasure, the one she probably wanted to see least, Happy, was quickly running up to her. To further irritate Raven, she looked to be laughing hysterically.

"Quick, Raven! Hide me!" the pink-robed emotion screeched loudly as she darted up to Raven, grabbing her cloak and hunching behind her.

"I'm. Busy." Raven simply stated, not missing a beat.

"No, no, no! You don't understand!" Happy giggled, latching on to Raven again. "Brave is chasing me. If she looks over here and finds me, then she'll see me and run after me and tag me and then I'll have to be 'it' and it's really not that much fun being it, I'll get really tired and then—"

"Shut. Up." Raven briefly spoke again, expressing her obvious exasperation. She continued walking in the same direction.

"Geez, what's buggin' you today?" Happy asked, finally getting the hint that Raven was not in a playing mood…again. "Oh I know what's eating you." She smiled deviously. "You're miffed cuz' you an' BB have been makin' out right and left and you can't figure out why."

Raven showed no recognition whatsoever that her emotion had said a thing.

"Yep, I bet _that's _it." The flighty emotion continued. "But hey, if you keep it up, you might be able to get into those tight little pants of his. Then you can put your hands on those nice, green—"

Raven froze.

"NO!" she shouted forcefully. Happy stopped, surprised at Raven's sudden outburst. After just a small moment of silence though, she began laughing uncontrollably.

"Oh, ho!" she shouted when she could. "Oh my gosh! You're a riot! Ohh, you should've seen the look on your face! A true Kodak moment!"

Raven merely stood there, waiting for the emotion to finish carrying out her laughing fit so she could have the opportunity to get a word in. When Happy finally stopped laughing, she spoke.

"Do you have any idea where Knowledge is?" was all she said.

"Old four-eyes?" Happy replied. "Nope. Haven't seen her. Good thing too. She's been kind of a drag lately. She's been sorting stuff non-stop for what seems like forever. She says you keep having really unmanageable thoughts and it's making her life 'laborious' and junk. Personally, I think she's just being a wee bit OCD. But you know how she gets about that boring-ass job of hers when—"

"Stop." Raven cut her off. "I just need to know where she is. If you don't know, then stop wasting my time."

Happy almost looked hurt at Raven's snippy impatience with her, but quickly resumed her spastic demeanor when she spotted Raven's Brave emotion dashing toward her. "Oh my gosh! She's gonna get me! Later!" she shouted as she ran off. Brave briefly darted before Raven in pursuit of Happy, but was gone within a second. Raven continued her search for the emotion she was currently infuriated with.

Soon, Raven found herself standing before a sleeping Crass. Rather than going through the lengthy process of waking the orange-cloaked emotion, then vainly trying to string information out of her, Raven merely stepped over her sleeping form. In the distance, she noticed Wisdom meditating. Raven was hesitant to ask her wise side for help due to the fact that she almost never provided a straight answer; though her comprehension of Raven's mind was comparable only to Knowledge's, she was about as helpful as a Microsoft Office Assistant. However, she was the only other emotion in sight. Rather than taking hours to search blindly, Raven decided to risk question Wisdom as to Knowledge's whereabouts.

"I need to talk to you. _Now_." Said Raven as she approached Wisdom. The emotion maintained her meditative position, but turned around to face Raven. She looked somewhat glad to see her.

"I should say so." She replied optimistically. "Ever since your last visit, things around here have gotten quite…chaotic. However, I suspect you know that, since you've probably had equal problems in the outside world too. I think they can be fixed quite easily. But to do so, we should probably discuss—"

"No." Raven cut her off. "I'm not here to carry on a 'feelings' conversation with you. I only need to ask you if you have any idea where Knowledge is." Wisdom's slight smile dissipated.

"Oh." She said, frowning. Wisdom looked toward the ground for a moment, then turned away from Raven as if to resume her meditative position.

"Well?" Raven spoke up.

"Well what?" questioned Wisdom, still facing away from Raven.

"Do. You. Know. Where. She. Is." An increasingly irritated Raven spoke through gritted teeth. Wisdom merely sighed.

"I already told you during your previous visit. You have no need to seek what you do. You already possess it. The only reason you are having so many problems right now is because you won't accept that fact. Like I was trying to say just now, if you would simply—"

"Look," interrupted Raven. "I'm just trying to find Knowledge. I don't care if _you_ think I don't really need to consult her. The point is, _I_ think I do. If you know where she is, tell me. If you don't, then just stop speaking."

Wisdom sighed and lowered her head.

"_What _is it?" Raven asked, putting her head in her hand. As always, she was quickly approaching the end of her rope with the frustrating emotion.

"You still do not understand, do you?" Wisdom asked sadly.

"No." answered Raven. "No, I guess not."

"I wasn't talking about Knowledge." Wisdom stated flatly. "I never was."

"What?" Raven asked, confused. As far as she could remember, that's all she and Wisdom had been discussing lately. The last time she had entered her mind, Wisdom had told her that she didn't need to seek out Knowledge because she supposedly already knew the cause of her problems. Just now, Wisdom had repeated the same concept. Now however, she seemed to be saying that Raven had completely misinterpreted her words.

"I was discussing Beast Boy, not Knowledge." Assured Wisdom. "Granted, if you continue your predicament with Beast Boy, the resulting damage to your mind certainly would require the assistance of Knowledge, at the very least. However, I was not talking about her. I only meant that your search, for affection, _not_ Knowledge, was completely meaningless because of Beast Boy. You both already have each other's affections, whether you realize it or not. From the looks of recent events, I'd say not."

For a moment, Raven merely stood there, dumbfounded by Wisdom's little speech. Not only had she said something straightforward for the first time in her life, but she had said something Raven had suspected and dreaded. After this brief reflection though, Raven's face once again contorted in the anger she had felt moments before.

"_Excuse_ me?" Raven said.

"Pardon?" Wisdom distantly replied.

"I do _not_ have affection for Beast Boy." Raven stated tersely. "At. All."

Wisdom laughed out loud.

"Really now?" she asked, the laughter apparent in her voice.

"Yes, really!" Raven shouted at the girl. "If anything, I feel the exact opposite."

"I know hon, I know." Wisdom laughed, the drollery dripping off her words. Her disbelief only served to further madden Raven.

"That's it!" Raven shouted angrily. "We're not going to have this argument! And I'm not going to search all over the place for Knowledge! I'm calling a meeting. Right here, right now!"

* * *

Beast Boy sighed as he leaned back against the kitchen counter. Gazing off into space, he began contemplating what had just happened. For what seemed like the third time, he and Raven had shared yet another of their increasingly common make-out sessions. Despite his attempts to somewhat keep away from the dark girl, this seemed to be a recurring pattern that wasn't going to stop any time soon. 

"Dude, why does this keep happening?" he spoke out to nobody.

"Why's what keep happening?" Cyborg suddenly asked, breaking the room's previous silence. Beast Boy jumped back in surprise, having been unaware of his presence.

"Cyborg!" he shouted. "How long have you been there?"

"Not long. Just got here." Was the teen's response. "But I've been in the room long enough to see you starin' off into space and start talkin' to yourself."

Good, so he hadn't seen him and Raven.

"Heh, well…you know, it's been a long day." Beast Boy sputtered.

"Yeah, sure, I guess." Cyborg replied, warily eyeing his friend. "So what's this 'thing' that keeps happenin' you're talkin' about?" he asked. Beast Boy shuddered.

"I, uh…it's, well…oh…nothing! Nothing really." Beast Boy told him, stammering every syllable. He really didn't want anybody to know about his and Raven's little "situation". Especially Cyborg; he'd never hear the end of it from him. At this, Beast Boy attempted to leave the kitchen, but was quickly cut off by a very suspecting-looking Cyborg.

"Oh no you don't." he said to the small changeling. "You've been actin' really weird lately, and you're gonna tell me what the problem is. Come on. _What_ keeps happening?"

Beast Boy fidgeted nervously, desperately trying to come up with some kind of lie or excuse to get him out of the kitchen without spilling the beans about Raven. "Really Cy, it's like I said, nothing really…" he sputtered. Beast Boy looked down and spotted Raven's book that she had left after storming off. He quickly snatched it from the floor and held it up. "It's just that Raven keeps leaving her books lying around everywhere. That's all. Seriously."

Cyborg didn't buy it.

"Okay, so, you wanna try tellin' me the…I don't know…truth?" he said wittily.

"Nope." Beast Boy replied. He then realized what he had said. "Yes! I mean, well, no! That _was_ the truth!"

"Uh-huh."

"Seriously dude, it was! That's not what I meant. I just didn't—well…" Beast Boy paused. He either had to get away now, or quickly come up with a more convincing excuse than his last. Seeing as cunning wasn't his strong suit, Beast Boy opted for the former option.

"Hey Cy! Look!" he said, pointing at a random spot in the air. "It's a uh…hydro-dynamic…self-carbonating…radiation maker…thingy!"

"Huh?" Cyborg immediately turned in the direction Beast Boy was pointing. "I ain't never heard of a hydro- that. Where'd you see it?"

Beast Boy took the opportunity to dash off, Raven's book still in hand. When Cyborg turned back around to question him, the changeling was no longer there.

"Dang." He grumbled to himself. "Craziest bunch o' people I've ever seen in my life."

* * *

Inside Raven's mind, most emotions were now gathered in a circle around her. She had magically called all of them to her, pulling them from their respective domains if they were there. The various emotions were all chatting with each other, save for Crass who was sleeping, and Rage who was irate at having been disrupted. All of them were there, except Knowledge and the mysterious purple-cloaked emotion. Their delay was only making her angrier, and her emotions' bantering was beginning to give her a headache. 

"If they don't get here soon, I'm going to summon them again." Raven spoke resolutely.

"Please." Wisdom said behind her. "This is all so assiduous. There is no need for it. This entire situation has such an easy solution. All we need to do is have a small discussion and this can be resolved."

"And that's what I want." Raven told her. "To have a discussion."

Wisdom didn't believe Raven's assertion though; she knew better. After all she essentially was Raven. She knew what this was all about.

"No, hon." she sighed. "All you want is a scapegoat. You want all of us here so you can 'chew out' Knowledge, because you want someone to blame. It is not about blame though. It's about acceptance. If you would get over yourself long enough to stop denying your and Beast Boy's—"

"I think they're here." Raven said. "They better be together. I'm not going to wait patiently much longer."

Sure enough, Knowledge was approaching the group from off in the distance. The ambiguous purple-cloaked emotion was lightly following behind her. The other emotions persisted in conversing despite their arrival. When Knowledge finally approached Raven, she spoke.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to arrive. I had sorting to do and it was imperative that it was finished." She said. "So what is the problem?"

"The problem is _her_." Raven said, pointing at the emotion behind Knowledge. "She's affection isn't she? Love, infatuation, passion, whatever you want to call it. That's what she is isn't it?"

"Yes, she is." Knowledge answered, smiling. "You see, dear? I told you you were capable of figuring it out without my counseli—"

Raven slapped Knowledge clear across the side of her face.

At this, all the emotions behind the two who had been chattering became completely silent. A thick, oppressive veil of silence descended upon the area. No one dared to speak, least they make Raven even angrier than they now realized she was.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Raven said to Knowledge. "Do you even _realize_ what could have happened? Serious damage could have been done! Already I'd say half the shit in the common room is broken, damaged or misplaced!"

Knowledge seemed to be surprised at Raven's actions and words, but wasn't the least hurt or deterred by them. At the same time, she was also not angered by her reaction. She spoke to Raven with her typical monotone voice, devoid of both intimidation or resentment.

"I told you. I thought the situation would be more lucrative if you determined the cause of the problem on your own."

"Lucrative?" Raven cried. "You call senseless and uncontrollable destruction lucrative? Innocent people could have been seriously injured!"

"Senseless and uncontrollable?" Knowledge said, questioning Raven's choice of words. "Perhaps what has been going on is a bit pointless, but beyond control it is not."

Now it was Raven's turn to look surprised.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "All week, my powers have been completely unmanageable. They've been activating without my consent, and then functioning improperly when I _do _use them. They're completely out of control.

"And her," Raven said, pointing to Affection. "You got out, momentarily, didn't you? When my soul-self was out of my body, you separated yourself from it briefly. Nothing like that has ever happened before. You shouldn't be able to do that. What happened?"

The purple-cloaked emotion looked up to make eye contact with Raven. She seemed reluctant to speak. She did however, as Raven noted, have that slightly distant, longing look on her face, as though her thoughts were with something or someone else far away from here.

"Answer me!" Raven ordered. The girl still seemed a bit reluctant, but soon spoke up.

"Yes, I am the one who escaped your soul self." She spoke calmly. "I was growing quite…weary of being trapped in here and having my thoughts oppressed so. I felt that I should leave this place for a bit, if anything, just to get a taste of freedom again. I was able to separate from you because of all the power your oppression has built in me. Doing so took away and relieved much of that power, so I suppose I feel much better now. Plus…I got to see Beast Boy for a moment."

"Which brings up the next point." Wisdom cut in. "Your feelings for Beast Boy."

"Alright," Raven began determinedly. "Let's get this straight once and for all. I will say this once and only once. I do not, repeat, do _not_ have feelings for Beast Boy. At all."

"Hon, this is exactly what I've been trying to tell you is your problem." Wisdom spoke politely. "Your powers aren't acting up because you are experiencing the affection; they are acting up because you are _denying_ it.

"Your powers are based on your emotions; even Crass wouldn't argue that. When you release your powers, you release your emotions, and vice versa. As you may have noticed from time to time, when you experience a strong pang of emotion, it often breaks free from your control. At that time, a bit of your powers are released with it. This is why you are constantly putting such restraint on your emotions; because if they were let out without control, your powers would be too. As you have so aptly pointed out in the past, this would harm objects, and even innocent people.

"At the same time though, there is a converse effect. When you fail to let out a certain emotion, its power builds up. I believe you have had this same experience once before with fear. The more you deny an emotion, the more powerful it becomes, until all that energy simply has no choice but to let itself out. Thus, your powers activating without you bidding them to do so."

"Besides dear," Knowledge kindly spoke again. "If you didn't have feelings for Beast Boy, _she_ wouldn't be here." Wisdom pointed at Affection.

Raven thought for a moment. She knew everything they had said was true. She knew the way her powers worked, having lived with them her entire life. She was more than aware of the way they were intertwined with her emotions. The only thing she disagreed with was the way they said she felt about Beast Boy.

"I'm not arguing what you're saying." Raven told them. "I'm aware of how my powers correlate with my emotions, painfully aware. I'm not even going to argue the presence of affection. The only thing we disagree on is that the affection is _for_ Beast Boy."

"And why exactly is that?" Knowledge asked.

"Because…I mean…do you actually _know_ him?" her voice gaining an increased amount of anger. "I mean, he's so annoying. He has the IQ of a cancerous monkey. He's absolutely incapable of being the least bit serious at all. And whenever he isn't joking around, all he ever talks about is 'tofu this', 'poor animals that', 'did I mention tofu?'!

"He jokes around all the time. He's almost _always_ laughing…or telling some stupid annoying joke. That's actually the worst part about him. He won't leave me alone. It's his life mission or something to tell me jokes day in a day out and make me somehow smile. I can barely stand him!"

By the time Raven had finished her little speech, she was breathing quickly and her voice was dripping with ire.

"Yes," Knowledge said. "But, adversely, you have affection for him. He is the only one who seems to care about making you happy, rather than simply staying out of your way. He's the only one that's ever pushes you. He _tries_ with you. And somewhere along the line, whether you admit it or not, you've come to like him for it. And more than just platonically."

"Yeah." Happy spoke up. "He actually tries to make us laugh sometimes."

"He's daring enough to approach us and give a stab at making us happy." Brave added in.

"He comforts us." Timid chimed in briefly.

"Hell, I love the little slob." Crass added.

Rage merely stood there, her hood covering her head and her face pointed down. Though everyone could practically feel the scowling anger coming from under her hood, she made no attempts at arguing. For the second time that day, an uneasy silence descended upon the group.

"Listen." Raven slowly spoke through gritted teeth. "All of you." She had an eerie feeling to her voice that while calm, seethed with unspoken ferocity. "I have absolutely no feelings for Beast Boy whatsoever. I think of him as just a friend, and barely even that. There is no way the two of us will ever be anything more than that. If _any_ of you try to contradict what I just said, you will suffer the worst possible fate I can think to give to you, without actually eliminating your existence. This discussion is over."

Having said her final peace, Raven left the group where they were, exited her mind, and went to sleep slightly early in the concealing darkness of her bedroom.

* * *

Beast Boy entered his room and stepped over the various articles in the floor. Making his way to the bed, he sat down and sighed. 

'This is so confusing' the changeling though to himself. He was literally at his wit's end. The situation with Raven had been going on for a while now, and showed no signs of ebbing. What was worse, he and Raven simply couldn't seem to keep their hands off of one another.

He had tried avoiding, even completely ignoring her (an oddity all its own). Though most of the time she seemed to be trying to do the same thing to him, he was forced to consider their unrelenting make out sessions. Now matter how much the two attempted to stay apart from each other, they always somehow wound up right back where they started: lip locked and eternally confused.

He had noted that this little 'session' had been different. Rather than clamming up and silencing like she had done in the past, Raven had looked extremely angry after this particular kiss. He remembered because her 'mad' look was always more memorable to him. Whenever she was angry, her hair just seemed to flow better. Her figure just looked more…heavenly. Her legs, though concealed partially by her cloak, moved more sexily.

'Gah! Why can't I stop thinking about her like this?' he screamed inside his head. 'That's it! No more thinking about Raven.'

Instead, he though about tofu, which Raven didn't eat. Then he though of the clear, blue ocean that could be seen from the Titan's common room. It was the same as Raven's favorite color. He thought of all his favorite video games he played with Cyborg. Raven detested them for their noise and sheer immaturity. His thoughts drifted to a field of flowers. The flowers were all so peaceful and beautiful. Especially the violet ones. They were the same color as Raven's gorgeous eyes.

'Damnit!' his mind shouted again.

He was breathing rapidly in anger. After mulling the situation over, he sighed.

"I can't like her like her. I just can't." he thought outloud.

'Is that why you never leave her alone?' his conscience retorted.

"Gah! No, stop it!" Beast Boy yelled to himself. "Maybe Cy's right. Maybe I am going schizo."

The changeling sighed again. "I really do like her, don't I?" After thinking for a minute, he finally concluded that yes, he did have some sort of feelings for her. It was undeniable. It explained why they kept making out, and why he simply couldn't stop thinking of her, even if he was in the process of ignoring her.

'Great, now I'll have to talk to her.' He concluded.

Beast Boy looked up at his clock. It had gotten quite late. He concluded that though he desperately needed to talk to Raven, it would have to wait until the following day. Having decided such, he laid over and went to sleep.

* * *

It was getting quite late now, well past dark. The only light source in the common's room was the computer. Robin was up late on it, desperately trying to uncover the motives behind the latest attack on the city. In his immense concentration, Robin didn't notice the door sliding open. 

"Robin? Man what are you doing up? Do you even know how late it is?" Cyborg groaned.

"I can't help it Cyborg. Something's going on here. The Hive wouldn't team up with Cinderblock and Plasmus and then not even try to steal anything. It makes no sense and you know it."

"Look, I know what you mean man, but can't it wait 'til morning?"

"What if it can't Cyborg? What if something really bad is happening? What if someone way above them is pulling the strings for all of this? Some madman could be plotting the whole city's death right now!"

"Man chill out! The only one who would pull something that drastic is—"

"—Slade." Robin interrupted resolutely. The word hung in the air for a moment. The two teens contemplated what could really be going on. Slade was known for being very dangerous. Though he had been gone for quite a while now, his reappearance had always remained a possibility in the back of their minds.

"It couldn't be him." said Cyborg, breaking the silence. "I mean, why would it be? He's been gone like, forever now. Why would he all of a sudden just reappear after waiting all this time?"

Robin thought. He scrunched his eyebrows and stroked his chin. Slade had always been an unusually devious criminal. He never acted on impulse.

"Because he's planning something." Robin responded after a moment. "And whatever he's planning," he pointed to the computer screen where the Hive, Plasmus and Cinderblock appeared. "he's using them. The question is, what for?"

At first, the answer didn't come easy. It was pulling at the back of their minds, but neither wanted to accept it. There had to be some other reason. They didn't want to accept falling for such trickery without seeing the answer sooner. There had to be some reason to employ other common criminals to attack, but not actually _do_ anything. However, as hard as the two tried, they could come up with no other excuse to use such a tactic.

"A distraction."

**

* * *

Author's Note: **

Okay, one last thing. I have updated my profile to include my current progress on whatever story/chapter I am currently working on. Under the "Current Stories" category at the bottom, you will see a "Current Progress" line under the title and summary of the story. I know I may not always have a lot of time to write, but I will always be able to spare 30 seconds to log in and update whatever my progress is, so you can count on whatever it says to be fairly current. 

Happy Holidays! Or rather, Happy End-of-Holidays-I-know-school/work-sucks-hope-this-makes-it-a-little-better!

Til' next time. GoldenBlade416


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

**Author's Note**: Alright, just a few quick things to address before the story. Numero uno, this story is sort of breaking continuity with the show. The Hive I'm using in this story is not the same Hive 5 (6, whatever) that's being used in the show. I just want you all to know that I am aware of that. I just came up with the idea for this story before season five began. Also, in the episode "Things Change", **SPOILER WARNING** Slade kind of came back (or rather a robot version) **END SPOILERS**. I'm aware of this too. It's the same situation as the one above.

Number two, you've probably noticed that there's coming to be a lot of action in this story (and trust me, there's more coming). Considering this, and the amount of humorous one-liners (I think they're humorous) and yadda yadda yadda, I'm changing the story's genre to "Romance/General". This really doesn't affect anyone's reading ability or anything, I just figured I'd let you know.

Number 3, and last, I've decided that I'm going to start responding to reviews. I may answer any questions you have, or just say "thanks for reviewing". Either way, I'm going to start doing it with this chapter. If you submit a review but specifically don't want me to respond to it, then say so, and I won't.

Now, without further adieu (spelled that right on the first try!), here's chapter 9.

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Chapter 9

Beast Boy anxiously walked through the hallways on his way to the living room. He had woken up around fifteen minutes ago and gotten dressed. For whatever reason, his alarm had not gone off that morning, so it was late and beginning to near lunch time. Because it was almost noon, he was sure all the rest of the Titans were already up and about. However, there was only one he was particularly hoping, as well dreading, to see: Raven.

He knew he had to talk to her; he had come to that conclusion last night. The little calamity between them had been going on long enough. He now realized he had feelings for her, and the two of them needed to sort the situation out before it escalated somewhere it did not need to go.

Hopefully, when he arrived in the living room, he would have some sort of chance to talk with Raven alone. Granted, all the other Titans were likely to be up by now, but he hoped to at least have a chance to tell her he wanted to talk. They did not need to carry on their conversation in front of everyone else; she just needed to know that he wanted to sort things out, maybe even start something with her.

At the same time though, Beast Boy found himself experiencing a bit of apprehension. Hundreds of questions and scenarios were running through his mind. How would Raven react? What would she say? Would she even _want_ to talk to him? Would she completely reject him? The possibilities were endless, but one thing was sure: this had to be done.

Beast Boy found himself at the door to the living room. When it opened for him, he passed from the relative darkness of the hallway into the sun-imbued common room. It was one of those days when the sun was out, uncovered, and shining at its fullest. The warm, scintillating sunlight poured through the windows and pervaded throughout the room. It struck the far side of the wall with intensity, silhouetting anything and everything in the middle of the room. For this reason, Beast Boy immediately noticed Raven sitting on the couch. Her slender upper body and head conspicuously stuck out from the otherwise flat form of the sofa, a similarly-shaped shadow extending all the way behind her figure.

Miraculously, Beast Boy noticed, she was completely alone; aside from themselves, there were no other people in the room. He also noted that she looked somewhat different this morning. It may have been partially due to the profuse amount of sunlight enveloping her face, but she just looked…radiant. There was a light about her that made her look more open, less moody, less like herself. For whatever reason, this served to assuage Beast Boy's nervousness a bit, though only by a little.

"Hey, Rae?" Beast Boy called out, accidentally using her self-despised pet name. Surprisingly, she didn't lash out at him for it like normal. She didn't even attempt a snappy little quip at his intelligence or mere existence. Instead, she turned around and was actually _smiling_.

"Hey, Garfield." She spoke cheerfully. A slight prickling sensation shot up his spine at the sound of her using his real name. "I'm glad you are here."

"Since when do you call me Garfield?" he questioned her. He knew that the entire team was now aware of his birth-given name thanks to a visit from the Doom Patrol. He also knew she had said she might use it to blackmail him later on. However, it was not so much the fact that she used the name; it was _how_ she used it. The way she had said it did not sound mischievous, or even annoyed. It had an almost…affectionate quality to it.

"I don't know. I just thought it was more…you." She replied. She smiled. "Besides, I don't think you really disliked it all that much."

"Ooookay…" responded Beast Boy, completely stumped by her newfound effervescence. "Whatever…I just, wanted to talk to you about somethin'. It's kind of important."

"Cool." She said, her voice still full of abnormal sparkle. "I wanted to talk to you too."

"Really?" Beast Boy asked, his face turning as red as his skin tone permitted.

"Well, yeah." She told him. "I always love talking to you Gar."

Needless to say, the conversation was going extensively better than Beast Boy had originally hoped. Not only was Raven _not_ biting his head off for wanting to talk to her (something he was half expecting given the situation), but she actually _wanted_ to talk to him too. Though he was not sure what it was she wanted to say, her present demeanor made him think that it was nothing negative. His face was beginning to get notably warm; not to mention that he kept getting weak-kneed every time she used his name…

"About what?" he asked her, trying to contain the anxious yet dreamy feeling that was forming in his stomach.

"Well, you know…a lot of things have been going on between us lately. A lot of emotions have been going around in my head. I figured it is about time to do something about them."

"Dude really? That's what I wanted to talk to you about!" He practically shouted. The dreamy sensation that had been contriving in his stomach grew ten-fold as he rushed over to the couch and sat down next to Raven. He made sure not to sit too close; she had a sudden amiability today that led him to believe that she was not angry with him, and that she might even reciprocate his newfound feelings for her. However, he did _not_ want to change that by imposing himself.

"That's good. Let me go first then." She told him.

"Sure." He conceded.

"Well…ummm…It's just…I-I guess I don't know where to begin." She confessed.

"How 'bout the kiss?" he said, hoping to get the discussion rolling.

"Which one?" she laughed.

"True." He laughed with her. Since the whole ordeal started, they _had_ kissed more than once. Beast Boy decided to interject his own thoughts. "Like, for me, when we first…you know…"

"Made out?"

"Yeah, that." He chuckled. "I was kind of confused. I mean, when I went to bed that night, I was pretty weirded out."

Raven looked a bit downcast at his last comment.

"No no no! I mean…I meant that in a good way, sorta. I was confused about it at first and all; I just didn't know what to think."

"I know what you mean." She admitted. "I was reasonably disconcerted about it too. At first, I adjudged that it would be better to disregard you, as well as the entire situation. However, everything in my mind just kind of amalgamated and compounded in on itself. It has gotten to the point that I can't handle it any longer."

Beast Boy stared at her.

"I have no idea what you just said." He told her with a confused look on his face.

"I mean…like you, I was confused too. I thought that, considering my powers, I should just ignore what was happening. Because of that though, my emotions all sort of…fell down on me. You probably noticed that my powers have been acting strange lately."

"Yeah." He agreed. "So…what does this mean...for us?"

"I…don't know." She almost whispered, scooting closer to Beast Boy. "I just…really like you Gar."

Had Beast Boy not been completely absorbed by the fact that his and Raven's faces were slowly inching toward one another, he would have been confused by her words. However, he found himself experiencing that now familiar feeling of getting lost in her gorgeous purple eyes.

"I really like you too." He said, almost inaudibly just before their lips met. For the umpteenth time this week, they had their faces pressed against the others. This time however, it was no accident. It was intentional and not to be held back or stopped. Slowly, almost without thinking, their arms found their way to the other's bodies. Raven rested her arms around Beast Boy's neck, while Beast Boy's arms found their way to her smooth, gentle backside.

Slowly, he ran his hands along her back. Even through her leotard and cloak, he could feel all of her ridges, dips, and curves. Eventually, his hands managed to locate the small of her back. Keeping pressure on this spot so the rest of her body remained supported, he leaned into her and deepened the kiss. Raven followed suit and leaned over with the kiss too, all the while, keeping her arms snug over Beast Boy's shoulders. Little by little, the two found themselves reaching a more and more "horizontal" position. Eventually, Raven was laid down on the sofa completely on her back, with Beast Boy lying gently on top of her.

Without warning, red lights signaled the tower's alarm system, and were accompanied by a consistent, loud, buzzing noise.

Beast Boy eyes shot open and he was awake instantly. Right behind him, contained within the pile of items on the nightstand, the intruder of his dreams was going off: his alarm clock.

"Unnh…" Beast Boy groaned at being awakened and having his dream interrupted. "Crap." He lifted his hand and reached to turn the alarm clock off. When he was unable to locate the insufferable device, he simply knocked everything off of the nightstand. The buzzing ceased when the clock, along with the other sundry items, hit the floor.

After a few minutes, Beast Boy sat up in bed, still rubbing a bit of sleep out his eyes. Groggily, he got out of bed and put some clothes on. About twenty minutes later, after brushing his teeth and having a chance to wake up, Beast Boy was on his way to the living room. He still knew he needed to talk to Raven, but did not exactly know how to go about doing it. He only hoped he would have half the success as he did in his dream.

As the doors to the living room opened, Beast Boy was distressed (but not surprised) to see that things were pretty much the opposite of what had occurred in his dream. Raven _was _on sitting on the couch. However, there was no inexplicable radiance around her, and the sun outside was completely covered up by dense, foreboding clouds. The rest of the room was occupied by the others. Robin and Cyborg were sitting down in the kitchen talking to each other. Their discussion was apparently very important seeing as neither of them were distressed that Starfire was buzzing around preparing some kind of food.

Beast Boy nervously walked over to the couch where Raven was seated. It was at least important to say _something_ to her.

"Hey Raven." He said. "What'cha doin?" At first, she made no reply.

"Reading." She said finally. "Don't interrupt me." Her voice and general temperament were completely different from Beast Boy's dream not twenty minutes ago. She was, as per usual, quiet, impatient, and not the least bit interested in maintaining any form of conversation. Her entire appearance just screamed "go away!". Beast Boy however, was not to be deterred. He knew Raven may be reluctant to talk with him due to the tension between them lately, but he also knew that it was more important to get the situation sorted out. The outcome may not necessarily be what he was wanting, but something had to be done.

Across the room, Robin and Cyborg were discussing what to do about the possibility of Slade's return and the conclusion they had come to last night. They were debating whether or not the rest of the team should be alerted, and what their plan needed to be to prevent whatever was causing this string of crime (be it Slade or another) from striking again.

"Do _you_ think we should tell 'em?" Cyborg asked in a hushed manner.

"Honestly? I'm not sure." responded Robin. "This could be important, so they _do_ need to know…"

"But?"

"But, at the same time, if Slade actually _isn't_ behind this, it might not be good to alert them over something that's not worth worrying about."

"Maybe you should give them a little more credit. You never know." Cyborg told him.

"I know." Robin sighed. "I just…don't want them to potentially get into the wrong frame of mind. It could make it difficult to stop whoever's behind this, Slade or not."

"True." Cyborg agreed. "But, on the other hand, if we _do_ tell 'em, they might be able to help. Maybe BB'll have one of his rare smart moments."

"Yeah." Robin laughed. "I guess you're right."

"So…agreed?"

"Agreed. We tell them. But when?"

"Better be now." Cyborg said resolutely. "We really need to take care o' this before it escalates. If we don't figure out somethin' soon, it could become more than just random attacks. Besides, I think your girlfriend's tryin' to whip up one o' her stomach flus a la Tamaran."

"Yeah, looks like she is." Robin replied. "Wait! She's not…my…ah."

Meanwhile, Beast Boy was still standing near Raven, much to her disapproval. He was currently brainstorming ways to ease into a talk with her. It was not working.

"Beast Boy, is there something you want?" Raven snapped, putting her book down. "Because unless you have something meaningful to say, which I highly doubt you do, you should just go."

"Well, uh…yeah." Beast Boy told her. "I just kinda thought that…you know…we should talk about—"

"In fact, it would probably be better if you just left irregardless." Raven cut him off.

"Yeah Raven, but—"

"Hey ya'll, we got somethin' to tell you." Cyborg shouted as he and Robin walked into the living room. Beast Boy sighed.

"What is it friends?" Starfire asked delightedly once she had sped into the room. She took a seat on the couch right next to Raven. Beast Boy too sat down, followed by Cyborg.

"Cyborg and I have something we need to tell you guys." Robin spoke. "We weren't sure at first, but we decided that it's important that you know."

"Oh jeez." Beast Boy sighed, raising his hand to his head.

"Man, shut up! It's not _that_! He's talkin' about the attacks on the city." Cyborg said, smacking the back of Beast Boy's head.

"Anyway…" Robin spoke up again, "Me and Cyborg were talking last night. We think we might know why the Hive has been attacking recently. We think that they're working for someone else. Each time they showed up, they never actually _did_ anything. All they seemed to want was to attack us. Now, we think that they didn't necessarily want to attack us, but to _distract_ us."

"From what?" Beast Boy asked.

"From whoever they are working for." Raven thought out loud once she came to the realization.

"Which is somethin' else we wanted to talk about." Cyborg interjected. "We might know who it is they're working for." There was a hesitant pause.

"Well, who is it?" Starfire questioned.

"It's…Slade." Robin finally said. The other three Titans merely sat there with confused looks on their faces. Neither of them was sure whether this was going to be another one of Robin's obsessions, a joke, or whatnot. "Of course, we're not completely sure it's him. But, unless a new, big villain with a _lot_ of intelligence has showed up in the past few weeks, Slade's really the only one with the cunning to put something this intricate together."

"So, what is he trying to do?" Raven asked.

"We don't really know." Cyborg answered. "Me and Rob were kinda hoping you guys would have some ideas. If we figure it out quick enough, we might be able to stop whatever's in the works before anyone or anything gets damaged."

"You do not think he is attempting to take over the city, or the planet, again do you?" Starfire asked.

"We don't know yet Star." replied Robin. "We're not going to know anything until we do some investigating."

Everyone groaned.

"Dude, what kind of 'investigating' are we talking about?" Beast Boy asked, expecting the worst.

"Well," Robin began. "I think each of us should be assigned something to go through and research thoroughly."

"Crud." Beast Boy muttered to himself. "I hate research."

"It may be monotonous, but it's necessary if we want to protect the city." Robin spoke. "I'll go down to the evidence room and search through the boxes and items there. Anyone else have some ideas?"

"I can go through the mainframe and search for any kind of video or data files that might have somethin' on 'em." Cyborg said.

"That's good." Robin told him. "What about you Star?"

"Perhaps I could search through the city for any kind of information. I would be able to navigate it very quickly." The Tameranian responded. With her quick flying abilities, she could search through the city and pick up any significant information at a very efficient rate.

"Great. Beast Boy, Raven, what about the two of you?" Robin asked, turning to them.

"I can go through any books or recent newspaper articles for information on other crimes or activities in the city." Raven replied.

"That could be a good idea. Slade might have been able to slip through the city's detection, especially with the Hive attacking." said Robin.

"So, what's that leave me with?" Beast Boy asked.

"Hmm…" Robin said, thinking. There really was not much left _to_ do. With Starfire searching the city, and Cyborg going through the computer files, what else was there? "Maybe you should help Raven." He said at last.

"What?" Beast Boy and Raven asked simultaneously.

"Well, all those books and newspapers can get pretty tedious." Robin told them. "And an extra set of eyes never hurt."

"Fine." Raven grumbled.

"Okay, so it's settled. Go off on your own, and do whatever it takes to find the necessary information. If anybody needs anything, we've got our communicators. We'll meet back in here at the end of the day for dinner. Say, six-thirty-ish?"

"Sounds like a plan to me dawg." Cyborg said, rising off of the sofa.

"It is most wonderful!" Starfire said as she too rose. "I shall begin right away!" With that, the girl rose into the air and flew out to begin her task. Robin headed off to the elevator in order to get to the level of the evidence room. Cyborg walked off to locate the server room where he would have access to all the files stored on the tower's mainframe. That left only Beast Boy and Raven alone in the room to begin their own research.

"Let's just get this over with." Raven sighed. She got off the couch and began walking off to find some reading material to start on.

"Wait Rae…ven." Beast Boy stopped her. "I think we need to…you know…talk about some stuff."

"No. We really don't." she said sternly and turned to continue walking. She was stopped though when Beast Boy grabbed her hand in an attempt to reason with her.

"I think we do." He told her. His speech was not harsh or mean like hers was. On the same token, he was not overly imploring either. He was merely saying what needed to be said, and speaking what he thought.

"No Beast Boy, we _don't_." she said again, her tone of voice growing in edge. "We don't need to talk, because we do not have anything to talk _about_."

"Rae, you know as well as I do that that's not true." He said softly.

"It's Ra-VEN." She said, finally pulling her hand from his. "And no I don't. There is absolutely nothing to talk about, because absolutely nothing happened." She turned around and began to walk off again.

Normally, when Raven used that tone of voice, Beast Boy would have tried everything within his ability to leave her alone. Normally however, he and Raven did not make out every other day. Plus, Raven's complete inflexibility with the situation was beginning to make him irate as well. Here he was, trying to make something out of their problems, and all Raven seemed to want to do was ignore them.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, his voice slowly losing its previous compatibility. Raven stopped and turned around.

"It means what it says." She said almost menacingly. "_Nothing_. _Happened_."

"How can you say that?" Beast Boy suddenly shouted angrily. All thoughts of coming to an agreeable solution had left his mind. "Of course something happened! Weren't you there!"

"It meant nothing. Nothing that happened in the past week was _worth_ a thing." She spat. "It meant nothing to me, and it shouldn't mean anything to you either."

"You can't tell me what to think!" The changeling shouted at her irately.

"No, but I can tell you this!" she countered. "_Nothing_ will ever happen between us! At all! I feel _nothing_ for you whatsoever! I am a mature and intelligent person, and you are an immature, whiny, unintelligent pinhead incapable of sentient thought! And I never wanted to kiss you!"

"Well I never _wanted_ to kiss you!" he shouted back. "You think I just got up one morning and wanted to make out with the rudest, snottiest, selfishest girl in the world!"

"Oh, 'selfishest', that's great Beast Boy! I think you've actually managed to become even stupider than you were ten seconds ago!"

"It doesn't even matter! You're still the rudest, snottiest girl I've ever had to meet!"

"Well, as long as it keeps me from having to be with someone like _you_." Raven hissed, getting closer to Beast Boy's face to emphasize her point.

"Guess it's fucking settled then huh?" Beast Boy whispered.

"Sure is." Raven replied. Beast Boy backed away.

"Then you can forget about me helping you with your stupid books!" he resumed shouting.

"Like you actually know how to use a book!" Raven yelled back.

"Well I'll probably do it better than you!"

"Then I guess I'll go!" she shouted, turning to leave the room.

"Please! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" The changeling shouted as she left.

"Our doors don't even swing!" was the last thing she said before exiting the room.

"Aughhh!" Beast Boy shouted in frustration.

"Arghh!" Raven yelled to herself as she stormed down the hallway, just as she had the day before. In her anger, she did not have the time to notice, but with every furious step she took, one item or another shattered in her wake.

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**Author's Note**: gets hit by onslaught of fruits, vegetables and spit balls. Sorry, sorry! I know this seems like abit of a stepback for our young heroes' relationship, but don't worry. I PROMISE that this story is BB/Rae. Please don't flame me for this. They WILL get together. 

Anyway, wow, no line breaks the whole chapter! I think that's a first for me. Just one quick note. From here on out, things in the story are going to, for the most part, start picking up the pace. I won't give any clues as to what's going to happen, but I will say that from here on out, it's going to be all downhill until the end. I've got a very rough outline of the rest of the story, and it looks like it's going to end with 12 chapters, plus a short epilogue. I don't know how many words that'll be, but it does look like chapter 12 is going to be _very_ long.

'Til next time. GoldenBlade416


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

**Author's Note**: Well, first thing's first. I am so sorry about taking such a long time with this chapter. I realize that it's taken me a month and then some to get it posted and I apologize. Really, my only excuse is that I just had trouble getting the inspiration to write. Around half of this chapter is something I wrote in around 3-4 hours. I think that it's only fair that I give special thanks to azkabanfan. This person just sent in a review, and it got me to kick my butt into gear so I could stay up all night and finish this thing for you guys. Kudos azkabanfan!

Second, I kind of want to apologize for the content of this chapter. A lot of it is merely introspect into what the characters are thinking, especially Beast Boy and Raven. I figured that it was important to put this in to clear up anyone's confusion about why the 'big fight' occured. I realize that last chapter, I said things would be going downhill and start picking up the pace. I guess I kind of backed out on that a little with this chapter. Just consider it the "mystery" portion of the story. Anyway, though at first the chapter may not seem interesting, I promise, there is dialogue toward the second half.

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Chapter 10

Raven stormed furiously down the hallway and into her room. She only wished that the door was not automatically shut by a computer so she could have slammed it herself. '_How dare he!_' she was thinking. How could Beast Boy have the audacity to try and tell her how she should conduct herself! Who decided it was okay for him to tell her what she did and did not need to sort out! Absolutely nobody! He had no right to do or say what he did. He had just waltzed right into the common room and tried to force her into a conversation, just like always. This time though, rather than leaving the third time she told him to stop bothering her, he persisted in trying to make her to talk. He had tried to make her discuss with him her actions from the previous days. As if she owed him an explanation! Her actions were none of his business! So what if she had had a slight mishap within her mind. She almost always kept her emotions under control, and had a right to get mixed up about something for once in her life! That did _not_ mean, however, that Beast Boy could make her talk to him about it. Moreover, since when could he tell her who she had feelings for? It was her own life, and she could be with whomever she wanted! And she did _not_ want to be with a brainless, joke-telling idiot like him.

It was at this point that Raven realized about half the objects in her room had become absorbed by her overactive powers. Various articles were beginning to float up and down, while pictures frames were cracking and books were gliding around the room. Knowing what to do after having dealt with such situations all her life, Raven began mentally reciting her mantra. Practically on cue, all of the items started to return to their properly assigned spots. The damage that had been occurring slowly began to subside. Continuing to regain control of herself, Raven began muttering things under her breath in aid.

"Don't be mad." She spoke to herself soothingly. "Just let the anger flow away." Her belongings continued to settle themselves as she uttered these words. It seemed that, for the most part, everything was back in its place or beginning to straighten up. "He isn't worth it."

Every item in the room shot off of its shelf and crashed into the floor.

"Damn!" Raven shouted in frustration. She simply was not in the mood to put up with her powers' unruliness at the moment. As much as she was currently trying to suppress it, she was absolutely livid with Beast Boy and what he had said. Not to mention the fact that her past week had been an emotional roller coaster. She had what could be a very important task to accomplish, and couldn't do so with her powers constantly getting in the way as they were. She desperately needed to find a way to control them, or else continue endangering the rest of the team and their new mission.

Raven began rubbing her temples in a small attempt to calm her nerves. This action granted her a bit of tranquility, albeit only a small amount. Because of this newfound peace, or out of mere exhaustion, her powers receded and gave her some degree of control again. The items that had been damaged or knocked over were not fixed or put back, but it was good enough for the time being. As long as she was able to at least function normally, she needed to get to work.

After pondering for a moment, Raven realized that she had no idea where to start. She could read any newspapers from the past month or so to see if anything overly suspicious had occurred without the Titan's noticing. Likewise, she could go down to the tower's information room and look through any of the city's records they had managed to collect. Both options entailed sorting through a vast amount of information; she would have a ton of work no matter where she started. Seeing as Beast Boy probably didn't even know that the information room existed though, she opted to begin there.

Rather than walking and having to chance running into her new least favorite person, Raven decided to use her powers to move herself to the information room instantaneously. When she arrived in the usually unused room, she began to look around the cluttered bookshelves in search of anything that might be of use. Many of the articles stored in the room merely contained reference information on various systems and functions that went on in the city. For instance, one book contained maps showing all major banks and financial buildings, sewer systems, and underground subway locations, should any of the information ever prove useful when pursuing a villain. Raven even came across the hard copies of each of the Titan's information and history. Though she was a bit tempted to take a peek at them at first, she did not, due to the fact that it was an invasion of privacy.

Raven found what she had been looking for when she came across a collection of books labeled "Jump City: Statistics and Records". The various volumes were sorted by date, one published for every quarter of a year. Unfortunately, no volume had been published for any of the recent weeks, and the last one distributed only covered up to around two months ago. Raven was at first skeptical that reading through the writings would yield any results, but decided that they might possibly contain some indirectly useful data.

Using her powers, Raven took hold of the ten or so books and levitated them onto the nearby desk. Seeing as the lackluster room was generally used only for storage of dreary books and such, the furniture was dusty and unkempt from lack of use. Raven brushed some of the dust off of the chair and took a seat in it. Opening the first book dated "_2001 January-March_", she began her search for clues.

* * *

Beast Boy angrily threw himself down onto the couch, crossing his arms in anger. He had never been so pissed in his entire life! What exactly was Raven trying to pull with him anyway? One day she was sucking his face off, the next, she was completely ignoring him. One day she was all over him, now she was acting like nothing had happened. Was she _trying_ to torture him, or did she just like being a stubborn bitch about everything? She wasn't even _acting_ like she wanted to work things out. All she really seemed to want was to go on pretending nothing had ever happened! 

But something _had_ happened. Whether or not Raven was willing to admit it, something was definitely going on between them. It had started as only a slight friction, a slight accident that had occurred that night about a week ago. Now however, it had turned into a full blown calamity. As was evident from their previous argument, the situation did not appear to be leaving any time soon. Raven could scream "deny!" all she wanted to; the circumstances were not any less real.

Beast Boy had tried to work things out with her. He really had wanted _some_ good to come out of what had been going on for the past week. When Raven seemed to have entirely opposite sentiments though, it had angered him. She was being completely inflexible about trying to patch things back together. Though he admitted he had gotten a bit more upset than intended, he was still wholly perplexed as to why she would want things to continue the way they were now. She couldn't want to continue their current "dance" of wavering between affection and anger, could she? Then again, he realized, it shouldn't have surprised him _that_ much. The two of them had such a love-hate relationship all the time, it had practically become a fact of life. Why she only seemed to have these shouting matches with him though, was still a mystery all its own.

As Beast Boy continued to mull things over, he began to realize that his anger was slowly leaving him. Rather than being furious with Raven as he had been a few minutes ago, he found himself being replaced with a confused, only _slightly_ ticked offfeeling. He still had no understanding whatsoever of her puzzling motivations or intentions, but was at least no longer _completely_ enraged at her.

A loud crashing sound suddenly snapped the changeling out of his thinking. It had sounded like it came from the general direction of Raven's room. Knowing that all of the other Titans were off in other floors and sections of the tower, he figured that whatever it was had to have come from her. He got up off the couch and ran into the hallway connected to her room to check it out. Though they had just had what could arguably be their worst fight since the formation of the team, Beast Boy would have never been able to forgive himself if he let anything happen.

He was halfway down the hallway when he heard Raven shout "Damn!" from within her room. Though he wanted to make sure she was okay, their recent abrasion still made him a bit hesitant. From what he had heard, she sounded as though she was uninjured, albeit quite upset. Knowing how Raven's powers correlated with her emotions, he assumed she was just experiencing a bit ofher usual "emotionalaftermath" from their argument. Given that he was still a bit miffed at her for being so stubborn, and thus not _too_ concerned, Beast Boy figured he should leave her to sort out the issue by herself. Besides, he still had work to get to, no matter how boring or tedious it was going to be…

* * *

Robin opened the door to the dimly lit evidence room and stepped inside. As he made his way to the back of the room, he glanced warily at the various masks, weapons, and other items the Titans had attained from their victories. Out of all of the "trophies" in the room though, none brought forth quite as many memories as the one he kept in the very back: Slade's. No one villain had caused him so many worries, sleepless nights, and just large amounts of general stress. It was astounding how one person (presumably) could be so blatantly obviousin his clearly criminal intentions, yet more elusive than all other villains combined. 

This time however, it seemed that Slade had altered his game plan slightly. Rather than being conspicuous with his purposes but elusive with his actions, he was just being generally advertent with everything. Other than the apparent complexity of the criminal activities that was typically characteristic of no one else, they had no direct clues that he was even involved at all. Hopefully, whatever Robin accomplished here in the next few hours would provide some kind of useful insight as to what was going on.

Finally approaching the back of the room, the Boy Wonder found one of the boxes that he had designated for objects pertaining to Slade. He pulled it out toward himself and lifted the lid that was covering its contents. On top of the sundry items contained within it, staring back up at him was the dead, empty mask of Slade. A surge of emotions suddenly shot through him as memories of mistakes, fights, and lost battles came back to mind. Out of all the feelings rushing through Robin, irritation, regret, and anger, the most prominent was…worry. To him, Slade was _his_ responsibility. Countless times, Slade had put the people of the city and the members of his team, the people he was responsible for protecting, in serious danger. And countless times, Robin had failed to stop him. This was, at least in his view, the final straw. He _had_ to stop him, and he had to do it this time.

Lifting the lifeless mask from the box, Robin began his search…

* * *

Starfire landed on the ground in an ally between two buildings. She had been flying about the city aimlessly for the past ten minutes trying to come up with some place to start. So far, she hadn't come up with much, seeing as she really had no idea what exactly she was supposed to be looking for anyway. It was for this reason that she decided to begin a more detailed search on the ground. 

After searching around for an hour or so though, Starfire found that she was encountering the same fruitless results. Nothing really _seemed_ out of the ordinary. Various people were walking around the sidewalks and buildings, going about their daily business. Shops and restaurants were open, full of innocent customers. There was no evidence of any criminal or otherwise out-of-the-ordinary activity. Everything was functioning normally, and nothing seemed out of place.

Sighing, the weary Tameranian girl sat down on a nearby bench in defeat. She must have searched over three quarters of the city, only to come up completely empty-handed. At this rate, she could probably spend hours searching the rest of the city, and still produce absolutely no significant information. She might as well simply give up and go back to the tower to see if anyone else had found anything.

While contemplating what to do, Starfire became vaguely aware of a strange, metallic noise behind her. Turning around to locate the source of the sound, she noticed the lid on a manhole being lifted up from underneath. Assuming that someone was trying to get out of the sewer, she dashed over to aid whoever it was. The phenomenally strong girl bent over and lifted the plate of metal with ease.

"Hello Earth citizen! Do you require any assistance in getting out of the sewage?" She asked, holding a hand out to the hole in the ground. Someone else's slightly dirty hand reached out of the relative darkness and grasped her own. Applying very little effort, Starfire aided in pulling the man up until he was, for the most part, sturdy on the ground.

"Thank you." The man replied distantly, standing up. Once he had gained his composure, Starfire took a second to look at him. He was wearing a loose, yellow workers uniform, meaning he was probably doing some kind of work for the city. Judging from his face, she concluded he was somewhere in his middle ages, late thirties or forties. He had short hair that seemed to be unnaturally light-colored for someone of his age. She also noticed that he seemed to have an eye-patch covering some injury of his left eye, and a bit of a mysterious, shady presence about him. All in all though, he appeared to be just another person doing nothing but going about his daily affairs. The only thing about him that seemed at all puzzling was the fact that he was holding on to a large, brown bag.

"You are most welcome sir." Starfire replied to the gentleman cheerily. "Tell me, are you perhaps one of the many people that do work for the city?"

"Well yes, I am." the man answered, pointing to the 'Jump City' insignia stitched just under his shoulder. "But I'm just a sewage worker. Puts food on the table, but it isn't the most glorious of jobs." As he spoke, Starfire noticed a somewhat unique quality to the man's voice. It seemed to have a certain degree of control to it that wasn't typical of most other people. It was almost as if, similar to his slightly shady appearance, he was trying to conceal something about himself. Though it reminded Starfire of something she knew she should have remembered, she remained polite anyway, due to the fact that the man's occupation in the city could potentially provide her some helpful information.

"Most excellent. Tell me, do you perhaps know of anything strange that has been occurring in the city lately? Anything of importance or suspiciousness?" Starfire asked.

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I don't." He answered. "Unfortunately, someone in this position doesn't receive that much information about anything unless it's just public knowledge."

"Oh, I see." Starfire replied in disappointment. Once again, she was at a dead end.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"No, it is no matter." Starfire sighed. "I was…just wondering." She didn't bother to tell the man the nature of her assignment, seeing as she didn't want to alarm him to the fact that something potentially dangerous could be going on in the city.

At this point, Starfire's eyes happened to travel back to the bag the man was carrying. "Tell me sir, what is it that you are carrying?" she asked out of curiosity.

"Ah, these things?" the worker responded, lifting an object out of the bulky sack he was holding on to. In his hand, he held a small, black, cube-shaped item that was relatively the same size as a cereal box. He tossed the article over to Starfire and spoke. "They're purifiers. The city just came up with them. They filter out any toxins that are so dangerous they create absolutely unworkable conditions. That's what I was doing down there, just implementing them."

"Oh." Starfire said, staring at the device in her hands. It weighed a bit less than she had anticipated, and smelled of strange chemicals, understandably.

"Well, I actually have to be going. As you can see, I've still got a lot of work to do." The man said, indicating the bag still full of black cubes. He began walking away down the sidewalk.

"Oh yes. Thank you for your help." Starfire replied when he began to leave. After a second, she realized that she was still holding on to the mechanism the man had handed her.

"Wait sir! You forgot to take back your…"

The mysterious worker had already disappeared out of sight…

* * *

Beast Boy lay sprawled out across the kitchen table on top of a pile of innumerous newspaper articles from recent weeks. He had been searching for hours and found essentially nothing. Granted, the mayor's daughter was getting married in a couple of months, and the Annual Cheese Expo was holding their meeting downtown on the 5th, but none of this wasactually significant. The lackadaisical changeling would have settled for any old crap-ass bit of information if he could just quit now without having to show up completely empty-handed. 

However, Beast Boy didn't stop. Despite his prolific boredom, he knew it was necessary to go through everything to be sure he had _all_ of the details straight. Though it was extremely uninteresting, it could mean the difference between the well-being and destruction of the city.

Picking up another newspaper, Beast Boy continued to sort through the seemingly random articles. There were 'Movie Showtimes'…no, 'Highway Cleanups'…not important… 'Hot Cars', interesting but irrelevant…

"Augh!" Beast Boy yelled in frustration. "None of this junk is important at all!" The changeling once again threw his torso down on the table with an exasperated sigh. There just weren't any significant events occurring anywhere in the city. No increased crime rates, no suspicious activity, no nothing.

Out of the corner of his eye, Beast Boy happened to notice an article entitled 'Chemicals Gone Missing?'. Figuring it was practically the best thing he had run into all afternoon, he picked it up and began reading.

'_In a mandated inventory inspection, personnel at RNC Laboratories think they may have discovered that certain items kept in a high-security chemical storage unit are missing. Because data files on any previous inventories are at this time unattainable, no conclusive results can be sturdily determined from the current chemical amounts. However, scientists from the lab still claim that a single case of concentrated nitric acid is missing from the storage unit. The case is thought to contain around 20 g (grams) of the potentially volatile substance._

_Upon contacting authorities, a thorough investigation was made of the entire laboratory. No substantial evidence has yet to be found. All entrances show absolutely no signs of any break-ins. Police can find no traces of fingerprints, hair follicles, or otherwise traceable particles containing human DNA. Despite this, scientists still claim to be missing one or more cases of nitric acid. When consulting security surveillance footage for the entire facility, it was found that all audio and video feed had been completely severed on the afternoon the scientists were off, Sunday April 16, 2006._'

Beast Boy finished the article. 'Well, that's definitely suspicious.' He thought to himself. Glancing up at the kitchen clock, the changeling noticed that it was nearly six-thirty; the others would be getting back very shortly.

'It's better than anything else I've found.' He thought. 'The others are coming back in like five minutes, and I got bored with this stuff two hours ago. If I just give this thing to them when they get back, I can go and watch TV now until dinner.' Beast Boy smiled and put down his (now finished) research. That sounded like the best idea he'd come up with all day.

* * *

Starfire was currently in the very endings of her investigation. She still had yet to find anything overly significant, and was flying over the edge of the city by the bay in a last attempt at locating anything important. So far, the outskirts of the city proved to be about as useful as the center. There was again, absolutely no trace of suspicious or criminal activity to be found anywhere. Starfire however, would not be deterred. She had decided to look over every portion of the city thoroughly, even if she never actually found anything. It was her duty. 

The Tameranian came to be flying over a large warehouse right next to a dock where a ship had apparently pulled in. Using her exceptional hearing, she happened two notice to men outside the warehouse yelling at each other profusely. She decided to go down and help out.

"What makes you think I know what happened to it Mack!" one man screamed at the other.

"Well Dave, its yer' fuckin' job. You were supposed to make sure we had the full shipment!"

"I already counted 'em all when they came in two days days ago! They was all there when I counted."

"Yeah, well since when can you count?" Mack muttered under his breath.

"Hey! Don't talk that way 'bout me!" Dave shouted, lunging at Mack. They had almost gotten into a full-blown fist match, until Starfire finally arrived and interjected.

"Men! Please, cease! Do not fight each other this way!" She shouted, separating the two. Once the men had calmed down, she spoke again. "Now, what is it that caused you to behave this way?"

"That idiot lost part of our shipment." Mack yelled."Now the boats here to get the delivery, and thanks to him, we're missin' a box!"

"I didn't lose it! I counted every one of 'em!" Dave protested.

"Well then where is it? You stealin' stuff?"

"Nuh-uh! Nah!" Dave yelled again, trying to lunge at Mack.

"Okay! Stop!" Starfire shouted, forcing the men to remain in check. "What is it that is missing? Perhaps we can…locate it?"

"It's a box of textile adhesives. Hexamine-based." Mack responded, looking at a clipboard he was holding.

"Oh." Starfire replied, realizing she had no idea what a hexamine-based adhesive looked like, much less how to locate a box full of one. "And what exactly do these look like?"

"The box they're in is made of cardboard, and it's about three by four feet." Mack told her.

"Where was the last location you saw it?"

"In the warehouse." Dave said, pointing. "We got a whole shipment of 'em two days ago Sunday night. I counted 'em then. Now they ain't here."

"Well then, perhaps we should check there." Starfire suggested. As the three of them began to walk toward the warehouse entrance, Starfire's communicator went off.

"Star? Are you there?" Robin's voice called from the other side.

"Oh, yes Robin, I am here." She replied, raising the deviceto her face.

"Are you about finished?" he asked. "The rest of us have finished up."

"Yes." She sighed. "I suppose I am." She hadn't actually found anything, and didn't think she would fair any better while searching for a missing case of adhesives.

"Okay, well, the others and I decided that we'd just go out for pizza rather than eating Beast Boy's…you know…cooking."

"Oh, do you mean the one by the video store?"

"Yeah, that's the one." Robin replied. "If you get back and we're not here, just go there."

"Okay, I will try to be home as soon as possible. I hope to see you soon Robin."

"See ya then Star." Robin said, cutting off the connection.

"Earth citizens," Starfire began to the men behind her as she rose off the ground. "I am afraid I must go now. I hope you locate your 'adhesives'." With that, she flew off toward Titans Tower.

"It's your fault."

"No it ain't!"

* * *

"Hello?" Starfire called out as she entered the living room. "Robin? Raven?" No one answered. She figured they must have already left to go eat. She decided to head back to her bedroom for just a moment. She still had the small device that the old sewage worker had forgotten, and needed to put it away somewhere. 

Heading down the hall, Starfire entered her lusciously bright and pink-colored bedroom. She walked over to her desk and sat the small, black apparatus down. Satisfied that she now had nothing left to tend to, Starfire headed to the roof and sped off toward the pizzeria downtown.

* * *

"Honest. Nothing!" Cyborg stated. "I must'a gone through a hundred video surveillance files and even _more_ news files. Not a _thing_!" 

"I know what you mean." Robin, seated next to Cyborg, responded sternly. "I had the same results. I looked for hoursand didn't find anything pointinganywhere." Next to Robin was Beast Boy, with Raven seated to the other side of Cyborg. The four of them were sitting around a single table in the outdoor portion of the pizzeria waiting for their order to come up.

Raven, unknown to the others, was still in a fairly bad mood. She was still upset over her and Beast Boy's secret clash of wills, and her emotions were still acting up. Because of her irate disposition, she was completely uninterested in her friends' typical small talk, and was facing slightly away from them.

Beast Boy unfortunately, was having exactly the opposite problem. He couldn't keep his eyes _off_ of them, or more specifically, justRaven. He was still quite angry at her, but found that every time he so much as glanced in her direction, that feeling disappeared completely. He was left with nothing but a prevailing desire to just stare longingly at her beautiful hair and gorgeous face.

"Yo BB! Ya' there?" Cyborg shouted from across the table.

"Huh?" Beast Boy said, snapping away from his dreams of Raven and back to reality. "What?"

"I said, did you find anything?" Cyborg stated.

"Ah, not really dudes." The changeling replied. "Just some article about some missing acids down and some lab called RNC. That was the only out of place thing I found, and even it didn't seem all that big."

"Dang."

"What about you Raven?" Robin interjected. "Did you come up with anything?"

"No" she stated frigidly.

"Uhh...she okay?" Robin whispered over to Cyborg.

"I dunno." The robotic teen shrugged. "They've both been actin' weird lately."

"Well," Robin sighed. "That still leaves us with basically nothing. I guess we'll just have to wait for Star to get here and see if she came up with anything."

"Maybe she did." Cyborg said. "After all, she's gone around the whole city. That's ten times as much searching as any of us did."

"I hope you're right." Robin replied. There was silence. For a moment, none of them spoke. Robin and Cyborg were out of things to say, while Beast Boy was busy going ga-ga over the taciturn girl across the table.

Suddenly, a 'woosh'ing sound broke the silence, followed by Starfire landing on the ground by the teens' table.

"Hello friends!" she said elatedly. "Tell me, how did your searches go?"

"Not so good Star." Robin replied. "We were all hoping that you found something."

"Well, no. I did not." She said solemnly, taking the seat near Raven. "I found nothing of significance to our task. Although I did meet a strange man who worked in the sewer. He accidentally left behind one of his black purification cubes."

"Purification cubes?" Robin questioned, having no knowledge of such devices.

"Yes." She replied. "They filter out toxins so people can more safely work in the sewers."

"Doedn't sound like anything I've ever heard of." Cyborg said.

"Yes, well, he said they had just recently come out." Starfire told them.

"Oh." Cyborg conceded. "Who cares? It's not like I plan on goin' down there any time soon. They can do whatever they want."

"What else did you run into Star?" Robin asked, getting the topic back onto business.

"Nothing really." She answered. "I _did_ stop some men at a warehouse from fighting over the disappearance of some 'hexamine' adhesives though. One man said that the other lost them, while the other insisted they had disappeared between Sunday and today. That was the most exciting thing that occured all day, but still, nothing relevant to our mission."

"So we're right back where we started." Cyborg said.

"Maybe not just yet." Robin interjected, deep in thought. A waitress came by and placed a large pizza that the group had ordered earlier down in front of the teens.

"Why?" Cyborg asked. "What d'ya got?"

* * *

**Author's Note**: Now, many of you might be thinking (or yelling) "Why wasn't Cyborg's little excursion mentioned at all?" Well, to be honest, it's because, as you read from the last scene, he didn't really find anything. I figured that it wasn't really necessary to waste any time describing how Cyborg spent 3 hours finding nothing. If any of you are Cyborg fans however, don't worry. I promise that in the last few chapters (which are coming up VERY soon) he will get his shining moments. Plus, if you want a little plot spoiler **PLOT** **SPOILER **he's going to have a small role in getting Beast Boy and Raven together **END** **SPOILER.**

Anyway, just to reiderate, don't forget that if you absolutely need to know my progress on the current chapter, you can check my profile for the current word and page counts. I'm not trying to self-promote my profile or anything, (believe me, there's nothing on that thing to promote, haha) but the feature is just there for your convenience should you ever feel the need to use it.

Well, that about sums up everything I wanted to say. I'll seriously try not to take so long on the next chapter.

'Til next time. GoldenBlade416


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them. 

**Author's Note**: Wow, long wait, huh? Sorry guys, I didn't mean to take so long. It was just school again. I would say that I won't take so long on the next chapter, but I've learned by now to just keep my mouth shut about dates. Since you guys have been waiting so patiently, I'll keep this first A/N short. So here's the story.

Good thing I'm taking chemistry right now...

* * *

Chapter 11

"I'm not _completely_ sure…" Robin said to Starfire. "Of course we don't know anything definite; it could just be a strange coincidence." The two teenagers were currently seated in front of the large computer in the common's room. Robin was attempting to explain to Starfire the theory he had come up with the evening before. "It just seems really suspicious that not one, but two things have been stolen in the past week."

"Yes, but I thought the items had merely been misplaced; not stolen" Starfire corrected. "In fact, the newspaper article that Beast Boy located yesterday specifically said that no indications of break-ins were found at the laboratory."

"That's the confusing part." Robin said, furrowing his brow. "Hand me the article." Starfire reached over the desk and sifted through the various papers and such that she and Robin had accumulated prior to beginning their work. Locating the newspaper clipping under a couple of books, she handed it to him.

"It says that the chemicals allegedly went missing last Sunday." He spoke after skimming over it for any sort of dates. "When did you say the warehouse said they lost the adhesive products?"

"I believe the men said that they were misplaced some time over the day of Monday."

"Sunday and Monday." Robin thought out loud. "Those were the exact same days that the Hive attacked in the middle of the city for no apparent reason."

Starfire gasped. "Then that could mean…"

"That the 'missing' materials really aren't missing at all." Robin finished. "They were unknowingly stolen while we were out fighting the Hive. They _were_ a distraction."

"But why two thefts?" Starfire asked. "What could Slade want with both of them?"

"I don't know." Robin replied. "We'll have to keep looking."

While the two teenagers were diligently searching for more information, two of the other Titans were also in the room. Raven was in the kitchen reading a book, waiting for her herbal tea to finish boiling. Cyborg was sitting on the couch, half-heartedly watching TV. He was, in all honesty, uninterested in what was on, but had no one to play the gamestation with; Robin was working, and Beast Boy, even past noon, was still asleep.

As if the heavens themselves had heard Cyborg's prayers to alleviate his boredom, Beast Boy walked into the room through the doors from the hallway. He still looked slightly tired, with his hair a bit messy, but was at least clothed as normal.

"Yo BB!" Cyborg called out. "Come play some two-player. I'm dyin' over here."

"Sorry Cy'." The changeling answered groggily. "I gotta go eat somethin' first." Beast Boy bypassed the living room and headed straight to the kitchen where he knew breakfast would be located. He figured that, unfortunately, he would have to prepare his own food, seeing as it was so late and everyone else had already eaten.

When Beast Boy arrived in the kitchen, he was surprised to find that Raven was sitting around the counter. Naturally, he was a bit tense around her, for more reasons than one. He had decided that, despite his slight remaining anger toward her, he needed to at least apologize for shouting the way he did. Acting as they currently were, the situation was still going absolutely nowhere. Besides, he didn't intend to fully take back what he had said, just the volatile manner in which he said it. Hopefully then, they could go back to his original plan of making some sense out of the past week.

Beast Boy paced over to the pantry and removed a small bag of toaster pastries. After popping the breakfasts into the toaster, he began to make his way over to the counter where Raven was seated. At first, she didn't seem to acknowledge his presence at all. Seeing as this was the way she typically reacted toward him anyway, Beast Boy was unsure as to whether or not she was still angry.

"Uh, hey, Raven?" he said tentatively.

"What?" she responded, refusing to look up.

"Can't we, you know…talk?" he asked.

"Why?"

"Well, that's kinda what I was trying to do yesterday." He replied. "And…you know, it got off to a bad start. A _way _bad start." There was a pause. Though Raven had lowered her book, indicating that she was at least paying attention now, she still wasn't trying overly hard to further the dialogue. "Look, I'm sorry I blew up like that. I was…out of line."

Raven turned her head toward the changeling slightly. Just out of the corner of her eye, she made a fleeting visual contact.

"Okay." She said, turning back to her reading.

"Okay what?" Beast Boy asked her.

"Apology accepted." She told him, still facing her book.

"Oh." He replied. For a few seconds, there was silence between the two. Beast Boy still stood next to her, expecting something.

"Why are you still standing there?" Raven asked him tersely.

"Well…can we still talk?" he asked.

"About what?" she questioned, lacking any enthusiasm.

"Well duh." Beast Boy chuckled. "The stuff that's been going on with us." He spoke fairly confidently considering who he was talking to, but still paused just before using 'us' to refer to the two of them.

"I thought we already tried this." Raven told him. "No."

"Well why not?" he asked, half whining, half protesting. Though he found himself in the same situation as yesterday, Beast Boy did not want to make the same mistake twice and cause a reenactment of the day before.

"Because I already told you," Raven began, slamming her book shut, "There's nothing to talk _about_." With that, she got up and began exiting the kitchen. Beast Boy though, wasn't about to leave it at that.

"What are you so afraid's gonna happen Raven?" he asked from behind her.

The toaster popped.

Everyone in the commons room turned to look at the two of them, now completely aware that something was going on. The room was enveloped by a tense, thick silence. Raven had stopped dead in her tracks at the comment, clearly upset by it. Beast Boy began to regret asking the question, but still stood expecting some sort of answer.

Raven turned her head halfway to face him. "I'm not _afraid_ of anything." She replied.

The tea boiled.

Though her voice had sounded relatively calm, a seething anger clearly seeped from in between Raven's words. She turned back around and walked out of the room, all eyes following her. As soon as the doors to the hallway closed though, everyone immediately turned their heads toward Beast Boy.

"Uhh…heh" he smiled sheepishly. "Musta' woken up on the wrong side of the bed."

Starfire and Robin grumbled, conceded, and turned back around seeing as they were doing important work. Cyborg did the same, but made a mental note to question Beast Boy later since he had known _something_ strange had been going on for the past few days.

Beast Boy headed back to the stove to remove the now boiling tea from it. After doing so, he stepped over to the toaster and removed his own breakfast. Placing it on a dish, he walked back into the living room where Cyborg was still watching TV.

"Come 'ere BB." Cyborg said to they boy, motioning for him to take a seat on the sofa.

"Hey Cy. What's on?" Beast Boy asked as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Oh no." Cyborg cut him off, putting the television on 'mute'. "Don't try to avoid me this time. What was that?"

"What was what?" Beast Boy played dumb.

"That." Cyborg said, pointing to where he and Raven had been standing at the time of their verbal exchange. "Your little 'thing' with Raven."

Beast Boy sighed. "Okay…we got into a fight." He conceded. It may not have been the _entire_ truth, but it was by no means lying.

Cyborg laughed sarcastically. "Oh gee. Really?"

"Yes really." Beast Boy protested. "Dude, I'm serious! I think she's really pissed."

"Well, did you try apologizing?"

"What!" the changeling objected. "Why should I apologize?"

"Cuz' it's usually your fault." retorted Cyborg.

"My fault?" Beast Boy began. "But she's the one that wouldn't…" he cut himself off, realizing that he might be revealing information he didn't particularly want Cyborg to know.

"Wouldn't what?"

Beast Boy paused.

"Nothing. Just…I guess we were both having really bad weeks or something. She didn't really wanna talk about it, and well, we just wound up yelling at each other." He finally said. "I don't know why she only fights like this with me."

"Well, since when do you try to talk to Raven about stuff?" Cyborg asked. "You usually just stick to buggin' her."

"Dude, that's not true." Beast Boy rebuffed. Cyborg merely gave him a 'yeah sure, really' look. "Okay maybe it is, a little bit. But it's just 'cuz I don't want her to feel…you know…left out."

"So. Why do you care so much?" Cyborg asked, a bit of a mischievous smile drawing across his face. In all seriousness though, he _honestly_ was a bit curious. He had always suspected the poor boy had a bit of a crush on Raven, seeing the way he practically never left her alone. Until now though, he had never seriously entertained the thought, given the fact that Raven would most likely have sliced the grass stain into two if he ever made even a slight move on her.

"Well, I…ju…I don't know." Beast Boy stammered, noticeably unnerved. "It just seems like a sucky way to live. Not ever having anyone you can talk to or trust."

"Just 'cuz she doesn't talk all the time doesn't mean she doesn't trust us B." Cyborg assured. "Besides, you know Raven. She's tough … made to last. She doesn't really need one of us there to help her every time somethin's wrong."

"That's dumb though," Beast Boy thought out loud. "You can't expect someone to deal with everything on their own…not _all_ the time. Everyone's got to need somebody sometime, even Rae. Even she's human."

"Yeah, but you gotta remember all the stuff she's been through." said Cyborg. "At least the parts we know about. She's learned to deal with a lot more on her own than we have. She's really independent 'cuz, well, she has to be." There was a pause. "Or, if you wanna think of it this way, maybe she's probably been that way for so long that she's a little reluctant to get too personal with anybody…even one of us."

"I guess that's true." Beast Boy sighed. He slouched down into the couch in a defeated manner. Cyborg's explanation may have been the reason, but that didn't mean he liked it.

"Still doesn't explain why she only gets in these fights with me though." He mused. Cyborg laughed.

"Well, I can explain that one." He chuckled. "It's cuz', again, _you're_ the one that's always buggin' her."

Beast Boy glared. "Come one, not _all_ the time, dude."

"Oh right. Just on days that end with 'y'." Cyborg teased. "You always get all 'up-in-your-face' with the happy, and that just doesn't jam with Raven."

"Well _so_," Beast Boy protested. "Starfire's happy all the time, she never blows up at _her_. They do stuff together all the time, and they never get into any fights over stuff."

"Mm, good point." Cyborg conceded, finally losing interest in the conversation and remembering that there was a gamestation waiting to be played. "Who knows? Maybe you're just, special." He picked up the remote control and turned the television's sound back on.

'Special?' Beast Boy pondered. 'Afraid?...Maybe that means she—"

"Come on, let's play some gamestation." Cyborg interrupted. "I've been dyin' all morning."

"Sorry Cy'." Beast Boy responded after a second, rising from his seat. "I gotta go talk to Raven. I think I know what to do now." With that, he dashed over to the hallway.

"Crap." Cyborg slouched in boredom, once again left with absolutely nothing to do.

Beast Boy passed by Starfire and Robin, who were still diligently working at the computer.

"Hey Beast Boy," Robin stopped him. "Where's the fire?"

"Yes, what is your hurry friend?" Starfire also asked.

"Nothing, guys." Beast Boy said frantically as he stopped before them. "I just…talk…Raven…Gotta go!"

"O-kay…" Robin replied as the boy dashed off once again. "Whatever."

Beast Boy, back to his mad dash to the hallway, was almost to the computerized door. When he finally got there, the doors didn't seem to want to open. He pushed the manual unlock button several times, but to no avail. Finally, in a hurry, he pounded his fist down on the button as hard as he could.

The alarm went off all over the tower.

"Beast Boy!" the other three teens shouted over the noise.

"What?" he objected. "It wasn't me! I was just pushing the door button!"

"What's going on?" Raven shouted over the noise after transporting herself into the living room.

"Genius here screwed up the security system." Cyborg yelled, pointing at Beast Boy.

"Did not!"

"Well then how come it went off when you were going ballistic on the door?"

"How should I know! Maybe it's just—"

"Don't get too upset Titans. It was _I_ who set off your alarm system." A familiar voice from the computer screen spoke.

"Slade!" Robin shouted as everyone turned to face the monitor.

"That's right." The masked villain replied. "And now that I've got your attention…"

The alarm shut off.

"Whoa!" Cyborg exclaimed. "How'd you do that? That system was supposed to be hack-proof. How'd you get into it?"

"How I've infiltrated your security systems is probably the least of your worries at the moment actually." Slade responded. "I've got a message for you. And since I'd hate to take up too much of your time, I'll try to keep it short."

"We're not interested." Robin seethed.

"Oh, but I think you will be. You see, I've planted underground bombs all across the city. I didn't bother to count all of them, but I believe the number is somewhere around eighty."

"Oh man." Cyborg whispered in shock.

"Now, my 'deal' is simple." Slade spoke calmly. "Either you surrender the city to me by 11:50 tonight, or—"

"You're insane!" Robin cut him off. "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

"Hmm," Slade muttered. "I thought that might be the case. If that's so, then I should warn you, I can and _will_ set off the bombs. Each.and.every.one. They have exactly a ten minute countdown sequence. If you don't agree to give me the city by that time, come midnight, there won't _be_ a city anymore."

"So what." Raven told him. "That leaves us hours. We can report the authorities in minutes. The entire city can be evacuated in _half_ that time."

"Of course it could." Slade told her. "In fact, that would be a completely viable option if I didn't have every communications line in the tri-city area except your own tapped as we speak. If you make even the slightest attempt at communicating with anyone else, I'll know about it instantly and detonate the bombs within seconds."

"You're a madman." Robin gritted through his teeth.

"Perhaps," Slade shrugged the insult off. "But I should warn you, as a last minute bonus, I've also managed to sneak one of the bombs into your tower."

All five of the teenagers gasped.

"So as I said, your security system is really the least of your worries right now." Slade spoke menacingly. "Anyways, I said I'd keep it short, so that's all of your time I'll take. I'd say you've got a little less than ten hours to come up with a decision. Good luck Titans."

With that, the computer screen phased out of the communication line and returned to the work Robin and Starfire had been doing. No one spoke for a minute. None of them knew exactly how to react. This was definitely a bad situation; possibly one of the worst Slade had ever been behind. Aside from siding with Trigon (which wasn't likely to happen again), he had never done anything of this magnitude before.

"So, um…what do we do now?" Beast Boy asked, finally breaking the silence.

"We stop him!" Robin exclaimed, slamming his fist down on the desk.

"But how?" Raven questioned. "We can't tell any of the authorities, and we have no idea how to find the explosives, much less stop them. We may not even know where Slade is."

"True, but we may—" Robin began.

"What's that?" Cyborg cut him off, pointing to the computer screen.

"This? It's just what me and Starfire were working on." Robin answered. "We were trying to find a connection between the two chemicals that were stolen this week. I guess we know it now though."

"Are those the chemical formulas?" Cyborg asked.

"Yea." Robin told him. "Think you can figure anything out?"

"Maybe." replied Cyborg. "Starfire, what'd you say was the name of those things that were taken from the warehouse?"

"Hexamine-based adhesives." She replied.

"Hexamine, hexamine…" Cyborg thought out loud. "And nitric acid was the other. Nitrogen and hexamine. Where have I heard those before?"

"I'm glad he knows what all those are." Beast Boy muttered comically.

"Oh man!" Cyborg exclaimed. "I can't believe I didn't think of this before!"

"What is it?" Robin asked.

"Cyclonite." He replied. "They use it a lot in the military. When hexamine's nitrated, it makes cyclonite."

"Uhh, you wanna try that in English dude?" Beast Boy asked, scratching his head.

"When you treat hexamine with concentrated nitric acid, it makes a colorless solid that, under good conditions, can blow up like nobody's business." explained Cyborg. "That can be good for us, but also bad."

"How so?" Raven asked.

"Well, let's just say Slade's done his homework with this one." Cyborg sighed. "If we can't shut off those explosives, they have a detonation range of over two-thousand meters. That's more than a _mile_ each."

"So, what's the _bad_ news?" Beast Boy asked. Everyone glared.

"The _good_ news though," Cyborg said, mocking Beast Boy "is that it might be pretty easy to shut 'em all off. Cyclonite is a really insensitive material; it packs a big punch when it detonates, but it takes a lot to get it to do that in the first place."

"What does this mean?" Starfire asked.

"It means that if they're gonna blow up, each and every one of them has to have their own individual detonation signal. Unless Slade's come up with something new, I'd say the only two ways he'd have of doin' this is by wire, or by radio signal. Now, unless he's gotten his hands on over eighty miles of cable, I'd say he's settin' 'em off by radio signal."

"Uh, dude?" Beast Boy spoke up "I thought you said each one would have to have their own set-off thingy. How could one radio thing do all that?"

"It couldn't." Cyborg told him. "What Slade's probably done is equipped each bomb with its own radio adapter. That way, all he has to do is use one signal to set off the first one, and before it explodes, it'll make a signal for the second to go off, which'll then make a signal for the third, then fourth, and so on."

"So if we can stop just one…" Robin began.

"We can keep the whole chain from goin' off." Cyborg finished. "Only problem is findin' 'em. The desensitizer you mix cyclonite with to make the it explosive has a radio-isotopic signature that's pretty easy to trace. Until we know the exact ratio of desensitizer to explosives though, I'll only be able to track the bomb's _relative_ location. We're gonna have to do some searching by foot."

"What about Slade?" Robin asked. "Can we find him?"

"Maybe." Cyborg replied. "By tracking the signatures from all the bombs, we might be able to analyze their locations enough to give a general area of where he could be hangin' out. But again, we'll have to do some looking on foot."

"It's okay." Robin said. "We'll just have to split up." He turned back to face the monitor screen. "Can you track the bombs on here?"

"Yea." Cyborg replied. "Just let me adjust the tracker's settings to focus on 'em."

"Alright. We've got _some_ time." Robin told him. "I hope."

* * *

Raven turned on her flashlight once she landed on the cement floor of the sewer. The team had decided that she, Beast Boy, and Cyborg were to search underground for the bombs, using an upgrade in their communicators to track their signature. If either she or Beast Boy found anything, they were to send Cyborg their coordinates immediately so he could arrive and disarm whatever they found. Meanwhile, Robin and Starfire had gone off to search the area they had determined Slade was likely to be in. 

So far, it looked as though Raven was equidistant in between three of the explosive's general areas. She decided to pursue the one that was furthest in Slade's direction, logically hoping that it would be earlier in the "chain". Turning a corner in that direction, she could have sworn she heard some kind of scuttling noise echo from somewhere, but shrugged it off considering the amount of vermin typically present in the area.

As Raven neared the signaled location her communicator was indicating, she noticed that possible range of areas the explosive could be located in seemed to grow larger. Now in fact, it seemed to grow a pixel or two with every step she took.

"Great." She muttered crabbily. "Just to make life even easier."

After around ten minutes of walking, Raven finally approached the edge of the bomb's designated search area. Sighing, she began to look around. She couldn't really see anything out of the ordinary, not that she was really down here enough to know what ordinary was. That, coupled with the fact that she really had no idea what one of these bombs was supposed to look like, made Raven realize that unless she hit a stroke of luck, she might be looking around for quite a while.

Right she was too. Half an hour later, Raven had only managed to search what appeared to be around a quarter of the area. If she didn't come across something soon, she may need to resort to bigger measures to accomplish the task, maybe even use her powers. She was stiffly reluctant to do so, seeing as the way her powers had been working lately, they were more likely to set off the bomb than locate it. If something didn't happen soon though, she may have been forced to.

Seemingly out of the blue, Raven's communicator started making a steady beeping noise. It was different from the sound it usually made to signal an incoming communication, and didn't seem to be going away, despite any buttons Raven pressed. As she continued walking, the time between each 'beep' seemed to decrease, and the noises became more persistent. Raven stopped and moved backward; the beeping slowed down a bit. She walked forward; it sped up again. Raven smiled inwardly at the prospect of this feature. Now that she was close enough to the bomb that the tracker in her communicator made noise to indicate its proximity, perhaps she would be able to speed the process up a bit.

Coming to an intersection of tunnels, Raven walked straight through. Once she passed the tunnel on her right though, the beeping sound's speed began to ebb down. When it sped up again once she returned to the intersection, she turned to her right and took that path instead.

After walking straight down that tunnel for a good ways, her communicator began beeping so fast that the sound had practically become a constant tone.

"Okay, I get it." She groaned to the item. "It's in here. So stop making that noise."

Lifting the communicator up, she pressed the button that would allow her to alert Cyborg to her whereabouts.

"Cyborg, I'm sending you my location now. I think you should get over here as soon as—"

A laser shot Raven's hand, shattering the communicator and knocking its remains across the room.

"Ow!" she shouted in pain. Reflexively, Raven dropped the flashlight from her other hand and used it to assuage the burn. "What the…?" she whispered.

Upon regaining her composure, Raven picked up the flashlight and shone it ahead of her. There were hundreds of Slade bots standing out in front of her, all poised to attack…

* * *

Cyborg lifted his communicator up to investigate the steady beeping sound now coming from it. The graphics on the screen indicated that he was getting fairly close to an area containing one of the explosives. Apparently, the upgrade he had provided in the Titans' communicators also sported an audio feature that he hadn't been aware of. 

"Well, good." Cyborg thought out loud. "Means I'm gettin' closer."

Cyborg used the newfound sound feature in his communicator to locate the nearest bomb. Along the way, he occasionally had had to stop and test a few directions to make sure he was headed in the right place, but eventually wound up in fairly good proximity to his destination. The beeping sound had practically become constant. While actually trying to find the explosive within the room, Cyborg shut off the volume on his communicator in order to tune out the nearly constant (and thus, now useless) beeping noise.

After a few minutes of searching around the immediate area with his built in light source, Cyborg finally came across an object giving off the signature of a cyclonite explosive. He got down on his hands and knees to inspect it. It was a small black cube, around the size of a cereal box.

"Oh, man," Cyborg uttered in shock, realizing where he'd seen it before. "Then that means the bombs are from…"

* * *

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven shouted, thrusting a beam of her powers out toward the oncoming Slade bots. Her attack went straight through the thick of them, but still only knocked out a small portion. There were just that many. 

Realizing that she was going to need quick use of both her hands, Raven sat the flashlight on the ground and hoped that it, and the dim lighting already present in the sewer would be enough to allow her get through the fight without getting _completely_ demolished.

As the small army of robots began catching up to her, Raven used another beam of her powers to eliminate as many as possible. Finally, as they leapt upon her, she threw up barrier over herself, shielding them away. She thrust her arms out, dispelling the shield and casting the robots on top of it out away from her. With one last wave of energy, Raven defeated what amount she could and prepared to go hand to hand.

One Slade bot ran at her and threw a punch straight for her face. Producing a small black shield with her hand, she blocked it and forcefully kicked her adversary to the side. As quick as it came, another robot followed by attacking her from behind. Raven moved out of the way and tossed it to the ground. Again though, without a second's rest, two more came to take its place. With both the oncoming attackers having punches prepared, Raven merely ducked and let the robots' attacks take each other out.

Another group of them was then running straight at her, this time composed of around three or four robots. Raven prepared small projectiles from her hands and thrust them at the group. As they fell to the ground, defeated, one Slade bot struck her from behind and knocked her body to the floor. She attempted to raise her hand to send an attack at the opponent before sustaining serious injuries, but the robot quickly kicked her in the side before she had the chance.

With Raven currently knocked onto the ground, and in serious pain, ten or so robots rushed up to take advantage of the situation. She prepared more projectiles from her hands and shot them to take out her enemies before they got too close. At the last second though, her powers stopped working, and she only managed to knock away one of the attackers. That still left a large group heading straight at her. They all leapt into the air and tackled her semi-broken from even harder into the ground, rapidly knocking the wind from her torso.

For a few seconds, there was no movement from underneath the pile of Slade bots. Then, almost as if from nowhere, a great burst of black energy burst forth from the group, sending the now defeated Slade bots sprawling across the room. Immediately, ten others came to take their place. Raven managed to block most of their attacks, but was still getting struck occasionally. She realized that, unless she did something soon, she was going to be backed into the wall by the group, and would wind up painfully defeated.

Dropping down, Raven used her lower leg to kick out the shins of the attacking robots. She severely bruised her leg in doing so, but had at least managed to obtain a few moments of safety. Rapidly looking around in the dark to see how many of her enemies were left, Raven failed to see the one robot run up to her side and strike her in the abdomen. As she keeled over in pain, the same robot took the opportunity to punch her in the face. As Raven reeled back, she let out another wave of her powers to destroy how many ever she could manage. Again though, her powers seemed to fail her, and only caused minimal damage.

"Damnit! What's wrong now!" Raven yelled, cursing her powers for failing out at such a moment.

Within seconds, another wave of attackers was upon her, kicking and punching faster than she could manage. Raven was struck and battered all over, reeling with each blow. As she continued to skirt away from the barrage of injuries, she found herself backed into yet another group of robots. Finally, it was too much to handle; their sheer numbers had caught up to her. Time after time, Raven attempted to make a shield out of her powers to block the Slade bots' various fists and kicks, and time after time, her powers chose not to respond.

As Raven began to lose consciousness from the blows she was receiving, she faintly noticed another source of light approaching from a distance…

* * *

Robin stepped over one of many mounds of rocks, holding a flashlight up in one hand and his communicator in the other, just in case. He and Starfire had decided that they would be the ones to part from the others and search this area for Slade or some sort of hideout. Soon after beginning their search, the two had decided to split up in order to cover more ground. Hopefully, they could find Slade and stop the explosives from detonating before the others had to worry about it. 

It seemed to Robin that he had been searching for nearly hours. And seeing as Starfire hadn't contacted him yet, she most likely hadn't found anything either. If he didn't pick up the pace and come up with something soon, it could mean the city's destruction.

After another half hour or so of Robin walking aimlessly underground, he noticed a small speck of light some distance away. As he approached it and its image became clearer, he noticed that it was a tunnel of sorts; perhaps what he had been looking for. He sprinted ahead quickly, in hopes of finally finding something worth his time. The teenager dashed through the large opening, and at first, had to squint his eyes to adjust to the newfound brightness of the great room. When he could finally see again, he opened his eyes and saw, though with some surprise, just what he had been looking for.

Before Robin stood an enormously gargantuan wall of computers, controls, and other devices. It was almost and amazing sight. How in the world Slade had managed to find this new place, and fill it up with so much advanced, working technology was truly dumfounding, to say the least. However, Robin didn't waste time gawking at Slade's adaptive abilities; he had a job to do.

Robin rushed over to the set of computers and gazed at all the controls on them, looking for some sort of clue as to how to stop the bombs from going off. Unfortunately, he knew how to work the computer at Titans' Tower, and had at least a fairly good knowledge of how to work with other machines, but Cyborg was the real computer expert. All the gizmos and gadgets in Slade's hideout were a bit above his own knowledge.

"Come on!" Robin growled. "There's gotta be something here!"

"You're never going to stop them doing that Robin." Slade's voice spoke calmly from the doorway. Robin turned around to face the devious villain. Held up in Slade's right hand was a small device with a beaming, red button on it. Already knowing full well what the device was, Robin merely stared at Slade pondering his options. The two continued this 'staring contest' of sorts, a mental power struggle waging between them. Finally, Robin spoke.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he asked. "You caught me."

"Why, whatever do you mean Robin?" Slade said menacingly.

"The bombs!" yelled Robin. "What are you waiting for? You've caught me, why aren't you setting them off?"

"Now why would I do that, Robin?" he asked. "You can just surrender the city, and we won't have to resort to anything drastic."

"I'm not the one doing something drastic here, Slade. You are!"

"Really now? Am I?" Slade asked. "You're the one who's down here, risking the lives of thousands of people just so you can prove something. You could have merely surrendered from the beginning and spared the lives of the people in the city, but instead you chose to risk them all and come down here, just because you're too proud to admit I've got you beat."

"That's not what's happening at all." Robin spoke through gritted teeth. "I'm trying to protect the city from the likes of you, not put it in danger."

"Well, you've certainly done a wonderful job, coming down here and pissing me off." Slade told him. "Since you coming down here wasn't part of our little deal, I could just push the button right now. The entire city, along with your friends who are still in it, would be blown to smithereens, but at least the two of us would be okay."

"You wouldn't!" Robin shouted.

"Oh, wouldn't I?" Slade said, slowly lowering his finger on the button.

"No!" Robin shouted, suddenly dashing at the crazed villain in a mad attempt at stopping him. He was just feet away from Slade when…

'click'…

Robin froze.

The button was pressed.

"Whoops." Slade whispered, almost gleefully, the mocking sarcasm just _dripping_ off his voice. "You know Robin, I think you should really reconsider your policy of negotiating with, what was it you called me? A madman? A terrorist?"

"No" Robin whispered, absolute horror engulfing his body. "You bastard!"

The fear taking over Robin's body suddenly turned into rage as the boy flung himself at Slade. Both fists ready, he threw punch after punch at the villain. Slade countered by blocking each of Robin's punches with his own fists. The two continued exchanging their own flurries of punches at each other, almost fighting in a dance-like fashion; one moving in sync with the other, each move correlating. Finally, Robin gathered all the force he could muster and threw his fist at Slade. Not even skipping a beat, Slade raised his gloved hand and caught the boy's punch.

"Still not good enough Robin." He mocked. Slade then raised his leg and kneed Robin right in the stomach, sending him sprawling across the room.

As Robin lay on the floor in pain, Slade prepared his staff and ran at the teen's fallen figure, hoping to either continue the fight, or beat the life out of him. Robin, seeing this tactic, raised his own bo staff just in time to block Slade's.

Slowly, Robin rose off the floor, pushing against Slade's force. He then broke the power struggle between the villain and him by pushing his staff forward and thrusting Slade off of him. He swung his bo staff at his enemy's body, only to have his attack blocked. Again, Slade used the same tactic, and gained a similar effect. The two continued swinging and blocking at each other for a time, never pausing at all, lest their adversary gain the upper hand.

Finally, drenched in sweat and nearly exhausted, Robin faltered for a split second. This small point in time was enough for Slade to swing at his tired body and knock him over once again. Robin fell onto the floor, still clenching tightly to his bo staff. Standing over him, almost toweringly, Slade raised his own weapon and brought it down on Robin. Just in time, the boy wonder raised the metal bar to block Slade's. Slade responded by bringing his weapon down on the teenager, again and again. Each time, Robin blocked it, and each time he was pushed back a bit.

After ten or so of these attacks, Robin found himself backed up against Slade's giant computer system. Seeing that Slade was about to bring his weapon down one more time, Robin rolled out the way, completely dodging. Slade's staff instead crashed forcefully into the computer system. Parts flew everywhere, and sparks arose near the struck area. Robin smiled at the villain's miscalculation.

"What, you think that's some sort of victory?" Slade asked angrily. "It's nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you!"

Slade drove his staff as hard as possible at Robin. The boy used his skills to once again block the attack. Robin swung at Slade. The dark man dodged out of the way and tried to bring his staff down on Robin's head. He raised his own staff, and found himself yet again engaged in a struggle against Slade. This time though, he didn't merely hold his ground; Robin, with unexpected force, pushed back. Slade's weapon was knocked from his hand, and Robin quickly kneed him in the stomach.

"Hmmm, that was almost impressive." Slade calmly spoke. "Unless of course, you were actually trying to _hurt_ me."

Robin charge at Slade, bo staff ready to end the fight once and for all. Out of nowhere, with almost inhuman strength, Slade raised his hand and caught Robin's staff in it, not even faltering for a moment. Then, in a second display, Slade twisted his wrist a bit, and snapped Robin's weapon in two. The pieces of metal fell to the floor with dual clangs, and the two found themselves once again, engaged in hand to hand combat.

The two continually exchanged a barrage of punches at each other. Having had enough of this, Slade maneuvered himself behind Robin, and with one swift movement of his arm, knocked the bewildered boy to the floor. With Robin on the ground, Slade ran to retrieve his lost staff from the other side of the room. Noticing this, Robin reached for one of the stubs left from his own destroyed weapon. By the time he had it in his possession, Slade was already running at him, staff in hand. Robin raised the small piece of metal in front of him, and blocked Slade's oncoming swing. Though this tactic did manage to slow Slade down a bit, his swing had so much force in it that it eventually broke right through what was left of Robin's broken staff. Now, he had no weapon whatsoever.

Slade pounded his staff into Robin's chest, knocking him back. Slade ran at him and swung again and again, each time severely bruising whichever part of Robin he struck. Finally, Slade lowered the arm with his staff in it and walked over to Robin's battered, barely standing form. With one move, Slade's fist swiftly connected with Robin's face, and the boy fell over onto the floor. He made little attempt to rise.

"Oh, and I was just starting to enjoy myself." Slade said dangerously. He raised his staff above his head, preparing to bring it down on Robin once and for all.

"Well, Robin, the city is about to be destroyed, and so are you." Slade said. "Any last words?"

* * *

**Author's Note**: Okay, so there you have it. Thanks again for sending so many reviews. You all rock! If there's anybody out there that knows better, I'm sorry if anything I wrote here was overly scientifically inaccurate (I'm sure _something_ was). Anyway, have a great spring break. (If you're on one right now that is). :) 

Til' next time. GoldenBlade416


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Teen Titans or any of the characters associated with them.

**Author's Note**: Well, it's been a pretty long time since I've update. A new record I'd say. Sorry about that. I took about a month off during May just because schoolwork was so overwhelming. It took so long after school to get this typed up simply out of lack of inspiration.

Anyway, I'm back now with another chapter. Originally, I had intended for this chapter to be the last full one, and then follow it up with the epilogue. However, since it had reached such a great word length already (and I hadn't updated in forever) I've decided to just post it now. There are more cliffhangers, sorry. That wouldn't be the case if I had finished the entire chapter as planned, but it would have turned out ridiculously long, and the wait would have gone on for a while longer.

In advance, I'd like to apologize for any spacing errors you might find. I edited this chapter in the edit/preview document part of the website. I skimmed through for any mistakes the feature might have made, but you can never be sure.

* * *

Chapter 12

"Raven!" Beast Boy shouted, tossing a rogue Slade bot onto the floor. "Rae! Where are you?" Beast Boy scanned the area in haste, looking for any sign at all of his teammate. For all the Slade bots though, as well as the already poorly lit environment, he really couldn't see a thing. The desperate changeling tried to see if there was any particular location the robots were focusing on, hoping that Raven would be there. By now though, so many of the attackers had broken off to fight _him_, that such a task was nearly impossible.

Beast Boy morphed into a grizzly bear as a group of five or so robots swiftly approached him. Using a clean swipe of his gargantuan paw, he effectively knocked each one to the side. Seeing that around ten more were now rushing over to take the place of the fallen, Beast Boy changed into a hawk and rose into the air. He glided over so that he was essentially right above the oncoming attackers and took on the form of a hippopotamus, falling and crushing them all instantly. He then resumed human form.

"Raven!" Beast Boy yelled out again over all the commotion. "Rae!"

By a miracle, or simply luck, Beast Boy's animal senses picked up on a faint cry over in the distance. Instantly, he took on the form of an elephant and plowed over to its location. After knocking over quite a few robots in his way, Beast Boy resumed his human form and began surveying the environment again.

"Raven!" he called out.

"Uhn!" Raven weakly cried out. Beast Boy turned around to find her a small distance away, completely surrounded by Slade bots.

"No!" he shouted, seeing what was going on. The worried teen immediately morphed into a ram and charged at the foes. Most were either destroyed or sent flying away, while a few remained latched onto Raven. Beast Boy took the form of a giant gorilla and, massive fists tightly curled, shattered their upper torsos.

"Rae!" Beast Boy shouted as he became human again. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

"No. I'm fine." Raven replied distantly, attempting to stand. She spoke more calmly than usual, though her voice was also noticeably flustered. "I'm just a little bruised up. That's all." She was holding the side of her face in her palm, and sported rips and tears down her leotard. She did seem to have gotten quite a beating, but, at least for the moment, was capable of standing.

Beast Boy look behind him and noticed another wave of Slade bots quickly approaching. He wasn't sure if Raven could physically fight hand-to-hand in this state, but figured she could perhaps use her powers from afar while he went in to attack.

"Hey, Raven," Beast Boy said. "You stay here. I'll go take care of those losers. If you think you can, try and do something from here with your powers."

"Fine." Raven grumbled. She really didn't like the idea of having to be a spectator, but simply couldn't argue that, until she had the chance to heal her newly acquired injuries, she shouldn't be doing any heavy fighting. She decided not to mention to Beast Boy that her powers weren't exactly the greatest they'd ever been at the moment. All Raven could really do was work with them the best she could and hope that Beast Boy could get by with minimal help, seeing as that was what he was about to get.

Beast Boy, having now taken the shape of a mountain lion, charged at the remaining Slade bots with incredible speed. He jumped off of the ground and, claws fully extended, shredded a few using sheer momentum. He landed back on the ground and shifted into a large grizzly bear. With only one swipe of a paw, he destroyed a robot, and with the other, obliterated two more. Lifting up the mangled remains of one and forcefully swiping it at another oncoming group, he managed to take out at least another five.

One Slade bot attacked from behind by jumping on to Beast Boy's back. To solve the problem, Beast Boy pounded backward into the nearest wall, instantly taking care of the problem. As seemed to be the norm in this fight, ten other robots arrived to take the place of the defeated one. Beast Boy was beginning to see why Raven, who normally could take care of herself, had had trouble with this. If the tables didn't turn soon, he might wind up in the same condition as she.

Raven, who had been in the background for a time now, was desperately trying to collect her thoughts and feelings in order to maximize her powers. She wasn't going to attempt anything overly strenuous, but needed to at least _try_ to be useful. Thinking she might have finally gotten somewhat of a handle on herself, Raven raised her hands out and front of her.

"Azerath Metrion Zinthos" she said, hoping for the best.

Nothing happened.

"Come on!" Raven shouted. "I can't just stand here like an invalid. Do something!"

Still nothing.

"Damn it!" She shouted, throwing her hands down in defeat. Apparently, her powers weren't going to do a thing, no matter what she did. At the moment, she could do nothing but simply wait and hope. She couldn't even try to heal her injuries, seeing as those also required some sort of power. Instead, Raven turned to watch Beast Boy continue to fight. Currently, he had taken on the form of a rhinoceros and was batting away Slade bots with his large, horn-laden head. Raven took note that, despite the difficulty seeing in the current environment, Beast Boy's breathing seemed to be getting rather rapid, as though he was tiring. It made sense, considering how long he had now been fighting for. She hoped desperately that something went their way soon, or else it might be over for the both of them.

The green rhinoceros swung its' head one last time and, using the precious seconds that the attack bought, changed shapes again. This time, Beast Boy was in the form of a lion; it was a significant size decrease, but a great gain in agility and movement. He dashed over to an oncoming robot and knocked it off its feet in one swift strike. Quickly turning around, he used his paw to permanently disassemble two more.

One robot rushed up from behind and tackled Beast Boy. The green lion and its' adversary promptly went tumbling across the room. Not to be so easily deterred, Beast Boy swatted away his attacker with a fatal swipe of his treacherous claws upon landing. However, the stumble had left him a bit injured, as well as in an awkward, disadvantageous position. When yet another team of Slade bots rushed to attack from behind, he barely had a chance.

Using what skill he could muster, Beast Boy managed to eliminate one of them before he was attacked full out. In a flash, the group was upon him. One by one, the robots pounced on him, each beginning their own onslaught of beatings. Occasionally, Beast Boy managed to beat one or two off. Unfortunately, so many were attacking and rushing in by now, that it made no difference; in a short amount of time, the entire horde would be upon him.

"NO!" yelled Raven, who had seen the entire scene unfold.

Instantly forgetting her slight resentment toward Beast Boy, she was filled with an ever-pervading worry. The entire room was filled with a dark energy in a split second. Every one of the Slade bots became encased in it, and ceased attacking entirely. They each began writhing and doubling over, as if in pain. After just a few moments, Raven's abilities won out, and the robots could no longer resist the pressure. Many of them imploded upon themselves, succumbing to the force, while others were merely blown to pieces. Either way, the entire room was cleared of enemies in under a minute.

Beast Boy, having gotten a bit of a beating before Raven's outbreak, returned to his human form and slowly stood up.

"Du-ude, Cool." he said, surveying the surroundings and looking at all of the quickly-beaten Slade bots. His face bore an expression of awe and astonishment. He then scowled a bit and turned to face Raven. "Don't tell me you could've done that all along. 'Cuz if I just had to―"

Raven however, wasn't listening to him. Her sudden outburst of power had cost her a great deal of energy, and had left her severely drained. Her head felt as though it was about to split in two, and her vision was getting blurry.

"Raven?" Beast Boy asked, concerned that she wasn't responding. "You okay?"

Again, Raven didn't answer. '_It happened again_', she thought. Her powers had instantly activated themselves when she became worried about _him_. Was he talking to her now? She could definitely hear someone's voice speaking to her. '_My head_…'

Raven fell over onto the floor.

"Rae!" Beast Boy called out, dashing over to help. "What is it? What's wrong?" he asked as he helped her sit up.

"Nothing." She grunted. "I think, I just…overexerted myself. That's all."

"Oh." Beast Boy replied, not really knowing what to say. He had known Raven for quite a while, but her abilities were still a bit of a mystery to him. He had very little knowledge of how to help her when something like this happened. Meditation was the only solution he could readily come up with, but that wasn't much of an option considering the mission they were on.

"We should go find Cyborg." Raven suggested suddenly. "We might be able to help him do something."

"Yeah, okay." Beast Boy agreed. "Umm, can you stand?"

"Maybe". Raven pushed off of her hands and lifted up to her feet. When she was finally standing, she stumbled a bit and grasped her head in pain again. Beast Boy grabbed hold of her and held her steady.

"Here" he said. He looped her left arm over his neck and wrapped his right arm around her body. With his added support, she stood up quite well. Raven scowled at the arrangement, but accepted, knowing that there was no other way for both of them to get around.

"Um, my communicator says Cy's over this way." Beast Boy said.

"Fine." Raven replied, pacing along with her teammate. "What about the bomb?" she asked. "My communicator said there was one in here before it was destroyed."

Beast Boy turned to look back at the room he and Raven were leaving. Almost the entire expanse of the floor was covered with the broken, scattered remains of all the various Slade bots. Literally _everything_ was in ruin.

"Well, you kinda blew up everything else." he chuckled. "If one _was_ in here, it's not gonna go off now." Raven nodded in agreement, and the two continued on their way.

The two teenagers entered a tunnel that branched off from the room and continued walking. As they did so, there was a stiff silence throughout the air. It wasn't so much from the dank location, as it was the tension between the two people in it. Raven was apparently still angry and Beast Boy was too afraid to try and push a conversation. Not to mention Raven was still feeling fairly lousy. Neither of them just seemed to want to put a lot of effort into an attempt at talking.

"So, uh…" began Beast Boy, at least trying. "You feeling any better?"

"Not really." Raven responded coldly. There was a pause. "Why did you come down here, to where I was?" she asked after a minute.

"I don't know." Beast Boy replied. "Your little dot on the communicator started moving around kinda weird, so I just followed it to here."

"But _why_?" Raven asked again.

"Well, I thought you might be hurt or something." Beast Boy said. "I was…ya' know... worried about you."

"Mm."

"So... hey, you're kinda talking a lot." Beast Boy observed.

"So what?" Raven asked.

"Well, nothing." He told her. "We just haven't talked that much since…a while."

"Yeah well, don't look into it." Raven told him, cautioning the boy not to derive too much meaning from it.

As the two continued walking, Raven became increasingly aware of the presence of Beast Boy's arm around her stomach. They were both awfully fatigued from battle, and were thus worked up and conspicuously sweaty. As he had been supporting her for quite a while now, his arm around her had become increasingly warm. She could feel the heat coming off of him even more intensely around the spots where her uniform had been ripped and he was touching her bare skin.

"Hey, let me walk." Raven said, pulling away from Beast Boy. Her headache had begun to subside, and she was feeling like her energy was returning a bit. The changeling consented to her request and released Raven's arm and midsection. He only hoped nothing bad would happen once she tried standing on her own.

Amazingly, Raven was able to manage without him. Once she stood straight and planted her feet correctly, she was able to stand with virtually no problems. At this, Beast Boy nodded and turned his head to the direction the two had been going. Wordlessly, they acknowledged each other and continued walking. As Raven's thoughts wandered through the dark silence, she couldn't stop from questioning if she had shirked away from Beast Boy's touch just then because she hadn't liked it, or because she had.

* * *

"Well, Robin, the city is about to be destroyed, and so are you." Slade said. "Any last words?" 

Robin lifted his head up to see his adversary, preparing for the worst. Slade's figure was towering over him, staff ready. Behind Slade though, figure towering over him, Robin saw the entrance to the room they were in now. In the darkness, he faintly noticed a small, green glow. Robin smiled. Though he could barely even see it, he already knew what it was.

"Just two." Robin replied. "Turn around."

Almost the second Slade's head was turned, he was attacked by a barrage of green energy bolts. The villain somersaulted away from the unfriendly fire, performing quick, precise maneuvers to avoid it. Starfire ceased her attack and landed on the ground next to Robin, while Slade remained on the opposite side of the room. For the moment, Robin had been saved.

"Robin!" Starfire called. She lifted up the battered boy next to her as he was trying to stand. "Robin, are you alright?"

"How sweet." Slade spoke. "Your girlfriend came as well."

"Don't worry Starfire." Robin said. "I'll be okay."

"Are you sure?" she asked again. Starfire was no idiot. Though Robin was at least standing on his own, she could all too clearly tell that he was not in optimal condition. He seemed quite out of breath, and looked generally battered.

"Pity I'll have to take her down too." Slade interjected once more.

"You most certainly will not!" Starfire spoke out angrily, preparing her starbolts to finish what she had started upon entering the room. She moved as though getting ready to attack.

"Starfire!" Robin shouted. "He already set off the—"

But it was too late. Starfire had already darted into the air, shooting green orbs down onto Slade. The mercenary was down below on the ground, acrobatically dodging the rain of starbolts that was falling upon him. Starfire put her hands together and shot down a single larger ray of energy toward Slade. He back flipped away in order to dodge it, and Starfire moved her hands to make the beam follow him. Eventually, Slade reached the back wall of the room and the computer. Starfire ceased her assault after having damaged the floor and part of the computer system. Slade was still undamaged.

Seeing that she was getting absolutely nowhere with this approach, Starfire decided to fly down and try a more direct approach. She sped up, hoping to crash into Slade at such a speed as to significantly damage him. Nearing ever closer to him, she gave herself one final burst of speed to maximize the attack's effectiveness. Slade saw her oncoming offense, and immediately knew how to counter it. He raised the bo-staff he was holding, almost as if preparing for baseball. As the already speeding Starfire came pummeling toward him, he swung the staff as hard as he could and batted her away.

Starfire yelled and went toppling across the room. She landed on the other side, clutching the location on her head that had been struck. However, she was nowhere near finished; the Tameranian had taken _much_ worse beatings before. Starfire rose off the floor, ignoring her pain, and charged at Slade, this time on foot. As she was dashing toward him, she prepared her starbolts once more. Once she was close enough to Slade to ensure a decent amount of accuracy, she fired at him. Slade managed to get out of the way quick enough to avoid serious injury, though he was still grazed by one of them and now sported a slight burn on his midsection.

Still speeding toward Slade, Starfire curled her fists and prepared for a hand-to-hand assault. She threw her fist toward the villain's face, but was blocked by the staff he was holding. Not even skipping a beat, Starfire aimed for Slade's head with her other fist. Again though, he moved his bo-staff to block her. Slade shoved the staff onto her, hoping to provide time get a hit or two in. Starfire, quick on her feet, then ducked and attempted to punch into Slade's abdomen. She just barely made contact, until he forcefully brought the staff down upon her vulnerable hands. Starfire yelped in pain and shirked her hurt limbs away from their attacker.

Using this moment, Slade took advantage of the opportunity to strike his adversary with the staff again. He swung it at the unsuspecting Starfire and watched as she was knocked across the room. Hoping that after such an attack she would still be distracted, Slade raised the staff and charged toward her.

Starfire realized at this point, that she was only going to continue getting beaten if she didn't do something about that stupid staff Slade was attacking with. She looked up and noticed that he was charging toward her, poised to kill. Making a split second decision, she prepared her starbolts around her fists again. Slade finally approached her and swung his staff once more. This time however, Starfire raised her hands and caught the object. Now, both of the super-humans had their hands on the treacherous weapon, locked in a power struggle to see who could hold out longer. However, it was not Starfire's intention to take the staff or beat Slade out. Heating the starbolts around her hands to an incredibly hot temperature, she melted right through the staff, breaking it into three, small, useless pieces.

Taking advantage of what she hoped was a look of surprise on Slade's face, Starfire lifted her foot and jabbed it into his stomach. The three metal pieces fell to the ground as Slade stumbled backward. The mercenary was far from finished though. Raising his fist, he ran at Starfire. She managed to block his punch using her own arm, but was taken by surprise when Slade used his other fist to punch her midsection. She jumped back in pain, and threw another starbolt in Slade's direction. He darted sideways to avoid it, and flipped over again and again to dodge as Starfire flung more and more starbolts at him.

Having finally recovered from the previous blow, Starfire charged toward Slade again. Fists ready, she thrust herself at him. Again, Slade blocked her punches, this time by catching her fists in his own. The two were again locked in a "struggle", seeing who could force the other down. However, Starfire had another idea up her sleeve. Making sure Slade was preoccupied trying to overcome her fists, she shot the green beams from her eyes that she had acquired not too long ago. Slade shirked back yelling, clutching his face where the beam had made contact. As he did, Starfire briefly heard the sound of metal striking the floor.

A part of Slade's mask had chipped off; now he was mad.

He charged at Starfire once again, this time with newfound fury. The girl raised her arms to block the attack, but was struck down by an extremely hard beating from Slade. An immense, throbbing pain shot through her arms as she cringed and quickly brought them down. Using the same fists that he had just used to pound Starfire's arms with, he vigorously punched her face and sent her reeling to the floor.

"My my," Slade spoke, breathing rapidly and glaring down at her. "I must say, that was quite exhilarating. I didn't know you had so much fight in you."

Starfire's eyes started glowing green as she prepared to shoot Slade down with another beam attack. She was stopped however when his foot made direct contact with her face, kicking it in the opposite direction. Starfire was now on the ground, eyes facing away from Slade so that she couldn't see or attack him, his foot pressing down on her head harder and harder with every second.

"I can't _wait_ to see you defeated."

* * *

Cyborg picked up the cube and began going to work. He had no idea how much (or how little) time he would have to work with the explosive before the detonation sequence started. Every solitary second could be the difference between the well-being or destruction of the city, as well as his own life or death. 

Cyborg turned one of his robotic fingers into a screwdriver and started dismantling the outer covering of the bomb before him. After undoing four screws, he lifted the plate off and looked at the bomb's inner working. Inside was a quite complex collection of wires, circuits, and of course, some mass of cyclonite hidden in the core.

"Oh man." Cyborg groaned out loud. "This ain't gonna be easy."

In his mind, though Cyborg was quickly picking out a course of action. The best way he could think of to stop the bomb from going of was to disarm the radio receiver so, even if Slade did activate the detonator, the bomb wouldn't be capable of receiving the signal. He had come to this decision based on where his knowledge was most thorough. Though Cyborg knew a great deal more than the average person on explosives, he had a far greater feel for working with more everyday items, such as radios. It was his hope that by working with the receiver, he would be more aware of what he was doing, and thus, be able to work in a more time-efficient manner.

Cyborg didn't know exactly where this particular bomb was located in the explosives chain; he had deliberately searched in places closer to Slade's hideout in order to optimize his chances of finding the first one, though it was still unsure. Hopefully, if this bomb wasn't the very first one, then it was at least far up enough so that there was only a small amount that would detonate in front of it. At this point, Cyborg wasn't sure if there was really enough time to attempt searching for another bomb in hopes that he might find a better one.

Reaching into the explosive, Cyborg located a piece of circuitry. He observed the patterns on it, and the wires protruding from it. He was attempting to locate the main radio adaptor, and hoped to do so by finding and following any wires that might lead to it. Once he found the component, it would be a fairly simple matter to disengage it.

Cyborg tried wire after wire that flowed out from the circuit board. He would choose one and tug along its' path until reaching its end. Finally, he located something that seemed like the radio adaptor; it certainly had the appearance of one.

"Found ya'." He spoke triumphantly, grasping the item firmly in his hand. Ever so gently, so as not to perturb some other part of the bomb, Cyborg began tugging it out of its place. As he began removing the adaptor, he whispered to himself, "Hope this works."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Okay, hope the spacing didn't disturb your reading too much. I'll see what I can do about that next time. 

Like last chapter, I realize I got a little "science-y" in Cyborg's part, though to a lesser extent this time. Apologies if I royally screwed anything up.

Keep a look out for the next chapter (13). For the BB/Rae fans (i.e. mostly everyone reading this), it'll be the one you DON'T want to miss. Also, it'll be the last full chapter, followed by a short, (and fluffy) epilogue.

'Til next time. GoldenBlade416


End file.
